ABSTRACT
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders (ADHDs) and Oppositional/Conduct Disorders, while making up the majority of childhood psychiatric diagnoses, are often not considered psychiatric problems of the first order. This may indeed be related to problems of syndrome definition, and also to the fact that these behavioural disorders occur on a continuum of severity and co-morbidity, only the most severe of which are consigned to the territory of the psychiatrist. Despite ongoing controversies regarding the symptomatology, nosology and aetiology of ADHDs is the most common neurodevelopmental syndrome diagnosed in children. Speech and language difficulties commonly co-occur with behaviour problems as they do with other environmental or individual risk factors. However, even if these other contextual adversities are controlled for or eliminated, speech-language impairments in and of them continue to be associated with increased psychosocial and behavioural morbidity.
