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Like almost all psychology studies I doubt this survives its first attempt at replication. At most this will survive 20 years, someone else will do a similar study and fail. Either that or a reviewer will determine this study was clearly flawed or biological research will show more likely causes. There is too much evidence pointing to other causes of ADHD at this point on biological grounds to take psychological explanations seriously.

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This research doesn't claim to show any cause of ADHD, it's only showing potential exacerbating influences on, or at least confounding factors of, the severity of symptoms those with ADHD present later in life. Children who expressed more negative emotional outbursts were more likely to be mistreated later, and those that were mistreated were more likely to express ADHD symptoms, and those those expressed more ADHD symptoms were more likely to be mistreated. There's no causal explanation expressed there, simply correlations that could be used to identify at risk factors earlier on in life. Everyone expresses their ADHD differently and identifying patterns in life that may either aggravate or alleviate the difficulties of the condition can potentially be helpful in the long run.

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