ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a prospective study of antecedents of minimal brain dysfunction (MBD) symptoms, far more comprehensive than previous MBD studies, has identified many highly significant associations. Like other factor analytic studies of individual symptoms, analysis of these data did not reveal an MBD factor but rather three major factors representing learning difficulties (LD), hyperkinetic-impulsive behavior (HI), and neurological “soft signs” (NS). The LDs had more failures on the Porteus maze and copy cross tasks, shorter attention spans, and greater level of activity than the comparison group. LD discriminators determined at age 7 included difficulty with right-left identification, refractive error, anemia, and histories of severe burns and measles. The familial association was weaker and more difficult to interpret than for LD and HI, but frequencies of NS among most relatives were compatible with a genetic influence. Other early predictors of NS included poor performance on the Bayley motor scale at 8 months and maternal smoking during pregnancy.
