"There was oxygen deprivation, and some minimal brain damage as a result.

Knowing that a child has, for instance, minimal brain damage, without knowing the nature of his environment, will not tell us how he will develop.

The syndrome came to be known as brain-injured child syndrome, to be amended later to minimal brain damage, and subsequently to minimal brain dysfunction.

The terminology used to describe the symptoms of ADHD has gone through many changes over history including: "minimal brain damage", "minimal brain dysfunction", "learning/behavioral disabilities" and "hyperactivity".

Physicians developed a diagnosis for a set of conditions variously referred to as "minimal brain damage", "minimal brain dysfunction", "minimal brain disorder", "learning/behavioral disabilities" and "hyperactivity".

In the last two decades attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder was variously known as hyperkinesis, hyperactivity, minimal brain damage, minimal brain dysfunction and, most recently, attention deficit disorder with or without hyperactivity.

The fact that a child is weaned early (or undergoes a period of separation, or has minimal brain damage, or loses a parent through death) will not by itself tell one about the eventual outcome.

This applies even to such comparatively gross factors as minimal brain damage: in one family its effects may be modified and normalized; in another they may be exaggerated and become the starting point of considerable behaviour problems.

Attention deficit disorder and hyperactive disorder (both formerly known as minimal brain damage, but nicely renamed by the drug companies) do exist, and it would be cruel to withhold Ritalin from children who suffer from them.