Analyses conducted for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) show attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) during childhood to be a risk factor for poor driving performance during early adulthood. Subjects who displayed severe symptoms of ADHD as children were more likely than a comparison group to have been convicted of assorted moving and nonmoving traffic violations later in life. The primary goal of the study was to assess the relationship between early childhood diagnosis of ADHD and later driving performance. Dr. Nadine Lambert, professor of education at the University of California, Berkeley, conducted the analyses for NHTSA using a longitudinal database she started in 1974 to explore the identification, treatment, and life histories of hyperactive children and the life histories of a comparison group of age mates. The database contains extensive information on 492 ADHD and comparably aged non-ADHD subjects selected in 1974 from a representative sample of more than 5,000 children in the school-age population of Alameda and Contra Costa counties in California. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting