Regarding a new National Institute for Mental Health Report:

Technology Review: A Neurological Basis for ADHD
A genetic variation that boosts risk for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) paradoxically appears to predict who will grow out of the learning disability. Scientists found that brain development in ADHD-afflicted children with this variation was out of whack at age 8 but normalized by 16. ADHD symptoms in this group were also more likely to disappear with age. The study is the first to identify a genetically determined pattern of brain development linked to ADHD and indicates a real neurological basis for the disorder, which has been viewed by some as a contrivance of pharmaceutical marketers or the product of bad parenting.

…. and a related post at another blog ….

Outgrowing ADHD?
Isn’t that interesting? But also don’t forget that finding that young gifted kids were more likely to have a late blooming pattern in terms of their frontal cortical development (executive function). So how should this impact our expectations? our educational process? or medical treatments?

…. and also….

The Biology of Late Bloomers – Gifted, but Immature?
This may not come as a complete surprise to some parents of gifted children. In a press release that is now racing around the Internet, NIMH researchers show us that the higher one’s I.Q., the more immature prefrontal cortex development…at least age 7. Aha.