A latest Taiwan study suggested that the birth date of a kid may play a part in determining which children are going to be diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and then can be put on medication for treatment.

The researchers discovered that preschool and school-age children, born in August were more vulnerable to be diagnosed with ADHD and getting medication for the same, in comparison to their peers born in September.

Published on March 10 in The Journal of Pediatrics, the study cleared that the findings aren’t applicable on teens.

In Taiwan, the cutoff birth date for getting into school is August 31, due to which the kids born in August are naturally the youngest ones in their grades, whereas September-born children are usually the oldest.

Lead author of the study, Dr. Mu-Hong Chen, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Taipei Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan, said that the age of a child relative to his or her classmates in the same grade could have a notable impact on ADHD diagnosis and the prescription of ADHD medications.

During the study, the researchers collected information from a health insurance database of nearly 380,000 Taiwan schoolchildren of the age group from 4 to 17. They studied the occurrence of children diagnosed with ADHD by their month of birth, and focused on the ones who were prescribed medication as treatment during a time span of 14 school years.

Chen said that due to the Taiwan’s cutoff dates, kids in the same grade could be nearly one year apart in age. He explained that the ones having birth dates just before cutoff date for school are quite younger and less mature as compared to their classmates born in rest of the year, mainly the ones born in the first month of the school year.