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Poster P2

Friday stream 1-4 Session 09.50 - 11.10 Length 25 minutes

ADHD symptoms and fatty acid deficiency signs in children with specific reading difficulties

CM Calvin , AM McDaid , CJ Higgins , T Easton and AJ Richardson ,

(1) University Lab. of Physiology, Oxford (2) Division of Neurosciences and Psychological Medicine, Imperial College School of Medicine, London (3) MRI Unit, MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, Imperial College School of Medicine at Hammersmith Hospital, London. alex.richardson@physiol.ox.ac.uk

Abstract

Clinical signs of fatty acid deficiency are found in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and these correlate with blood biochemical measures of deficiency in certain highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFA). The high clinical overlap with ADHD could underlie some of the independent evidence for fatty acid abnormalities in dyslexia, although this possibility has not yet been directly examined. Fatty acid deficiency signs were therefore investigated in relation to ADHD symptoms in 70 children identified purely on the basis of their specific reading difficulties (dyslexia). Total fatty acid deficiency signs (FADS) were very strongly correlated with parent ratings for a wide range of ADHD symptoms, which were elevated in these children relative to population norms. These associations held when children were grouped either by their FADS scores or by global ADHD ratings. These results suggest that fatty acid abnormalities could help to explain some of the overlap between dyslexia and ADHD. We are now seeking to establish whether checklist measures of FADS or ADHD symptoms can predict the response to treatment with fatty acids in dyslexia.