What Causes ADHD? Understanding What Goes Wrong and Why

Abstract

Reviews the book, What causes ADHD? Understanding what goes wrong and why by Joel T. Nigg (see record 2006-07725-000). Nigg begins his book with a discussion on validity, identifying two types; "clinical validity," the extent to which a disorder can be statistically identified and differentiated from other disorders, and "etiological validity," the extent to which we can identify the causative factors of a disorder or disease. Most Axis I psychiatric disorders, including ADHD, are able to satisfy the criteria for clinical validity, however, almost none, including ADHD, can totally satisfy etiological validity. Nigg successfully satisfies the criteria of clinical validity by describing what is known about the neuropsychology of ADHD, utilizing a multipathway approach to understanding causal mechanisms. He organizes the book into four sections. The two chapters of Part I review conceptual issues and the controversies and definitions of ADHD. Part II, entitled "How does ADHD Work" reviews the involved neural systems, discusses attention and arousal, executive functioning, cognitive control, motivation, motor control, and timing. Part III addresses the currently known etiologies of ADHD, making the case for it as a syndromal construct with multiple pathways including genetic effects and what he terms common and uncommon experiential risk factors. Part IV is comprised of two concluding chapters. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved) (from the journal abstract)