UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

The role of birth weight on the causal pathway to child and adolescent ADHD symptomatology: a population-based twin differences longitudinal design

Lim, KX; Liu, C-Y; Schoeler, T; Cecil, CAM; Barker, ED; Viding, E; Greven, CU; (2018) The role of birth weight on the causal pathway to child and adolescent ADHD symptomatology: a population-based twin differences longitudinal design. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry , 59 (10) 10.1111/jcpp.12949. Green open access

[thumbnail of Lim_et_al-2018-Journal_of_Child_Psychology_and_Psychiatry_rev.pdf]
Preview
Text
Lim_et_al-2018-Journal_of_Child_Psychology_and_Psychiatry_rev.pdf

Download (162kB) | Preview

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Available evidence points towards lower birth weight as a risk factor for the development of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms. We probed the causal nature of this putative effect of birth weight on ADHD symptoms using the twin differences design, which accounts for genetic and shared environmental confounds. METHOD: In a large population-based twin sample - 3,499 monozygotic (MZ) and 6,698 dizygotic (DZ) pairs - parents, teachers or twins rated the twins' ADHD symptoms at nine assessment waves (2-16 years). We implemented the twin differences design, which completely accounts for shared environmental and genetic confounding in MZ twins. We tested whether: (a) the lighter-born twins had elevated ADHD symptoms compared to the heavier-born twins, by regressing within-pair differences of ADHD symptoms on within-pair differences of birth weight among MZ twins; (b) the effect of birth weight on ADHD was moderated by gender, gestational age and low birth weight; (c) this effect changed with age at ADHD assessment using adapted latent growth curve models; and (d) results differed for inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity. RESULTS: Birth weight significantly predicted ADHD symptoms from early childhood to late adolescence. The lighter-born twin had more ADHD symptoms than the heavier-born cotwin among MZ twins across assessment waves and raters. No moderation effect was detected. The magnitude of the effect of birth weight decreased significantly across time for hyperactivity/impulsivity, but the decrease failed to reach significance for inattention. Estimates for inattention were significantly larger than for hyperactivity/impulsivity at each time point, implying stronger effect of birth weight on inattention symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings provide stringent evidence for environmental effect of lower birth weight on the causal pathway to elevated ADHD symptoms. Effect of birth weight persists across a 14-year period from childhood into late adolescence, in particular for inattention symptoms.

Type: Article
Title: The role of birth weight on the causal pathway to child and adolescent ADHD symptomatology: a population-based twin differences longitudinal design
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12949
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12949
Language: English
Additional information: © 2018 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, birth weight, hyperactivity/impulsivity, inattention, twin differences
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Clinical, Edu and Hlth Psychology
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10053687
Downloads since deposit
106Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item