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Assessment of reproductive disorders and birth defects in communities near hazardous chemical sites. I. Birth defects and developmental disorders.

Members of the workgroup on birth defects and developmental disorders discussed methods to assess structural anomalies, genetic changes and mutations, fetal and infant mortality, functional deficits, and impaired fetal and neonatal growth. Tier 1 assessments for all five adverse reproductive outcomes consist of questionnaires and reviews of medical records rather than laboratory testing of biologic specimens. The work-group members noted a role for neurodevelopmental testing and for limited genetic studies, such as karyotyping in Tier 2 assessments. Emerging methodologies to identify chromosomal aberrations, DNA adducts, and repair inhibition were reserved for Tier 3.

Adult↗

Neuropathology of the dentate nucleus in developmental disorders.

The dentate nucleus was examined histologically and immunohistochemically in 47 cases of nonprogressive developmental disorders. Neuronal loss and/or atrophy was observed in 13 cases, while mild neuronal lesions, characterized by dendritic swelling and/or the appearance of eosinophilic materials around the neurons, were exhibited in 20 cases. The former change was accompanied by diffuse central nervous system involvement, and the etiology was perinatal hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy, acute encephalopathy, and meningoencephalitis in most cases. On the other hand, most of the patients with kernicterus showed the latter change. Immunohistochemically, the mild neuronal lesions mimicking grumose, degeneration, described in some neurodegenerative diseases, seemed to reflect the changes of Purkinje cell terminals. It is suggested that secondary structural alteration of the dentate neurons in the absence of severe atrophy can occur in nonprogressive developmental disorders.

Adolescent↗

Differentiating pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified from autism and language disorders.

Features useful in distinguishing children with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) from those with autism or language disorder were developed from a retrospective chart review using groups of children with PDD-NOS and MA- and sex-matched autistic and language-disordered groups. Charts were reviewed using a list of 80 items compiled from various sources. Items that had adequate interrater reliability and significantly discriminated the PDD-NOS cases from the language-disordered or autistic cases were then evaluated using a second set of cases and signal detection methods. Fewer items significantly discriminated cases with autism from those with PDD-NOS as compared to cases with language disorder. Clinical implications are discussed.

Autistic Disorder↗

Retrospective study of quetiapine in children and adolescents with pervasive developmental disorders.

A retrospective study was conducted in a clinic specialized in treating individuals with developmental disabilities to examine the effectiveness and tolerability of quetiapine in children and adolescents with pervasive developmental disorders. Ten consecutive outpatients (age = 12.0 +/- 5.1 years) treated with quetiapine (dose = 477 +/- 212 mg, duration = 22.0 +/- 10.1 weeks) were identified and six were judged to be responders based on impressions from chart review and Conners Parent Scale (CPS). Improvements were observed in the conduct, inattention, and hyperactivity subscales of the CPS. Adverse events were mild with sedation being the most common, and no patient required treatment termination. Quetiapine may be beneficial in children and adolescents with pervasive developmental disorders, however open-label and double-blind, placebo-controlled studies are warranted.

Adolescent↗

Cognitive neuropsychology and developmental disorders: uncomfortable bedfellows.

Cognitive neuropsychology provides a theoretical framework and methods that can be of value in the study of developmental disorders, but the "dissociation" logic at the centre of this approach is not well suited to the developmental context. This is illustrated with examples from specific language impairment. Within the developing language system there is ample evidence for interaction between levels of representation, with modularity emerging in the course of development. This means that one typically is seeking to explain a complex pattern of associated impairments, rather than highly selective deficits. For instance, a selective impairment in auditory processing can have repercussions through the language system and may lead to distinctive syntactic deficits that are seen in written as well as spoken language. Changes in the nature of representations and in the relationships between components of a developing system mean that cross-sectional data at a single point in development may be misleading indicators of the primary deficit. Furthermore, traditional cognitive neuropsychology places a disproportionate emphasis on representational (competence) deficits, with processing (performance) deficits being relatively neglected. Methods for distinguishing these two kinds of impairment are discussed, as well as other approaches for elucidating the underlying nature of developmental disorders.

Child↗

The severity and nature of motor impairment in Asperger's syndrome: a comparison with specific developmental disorder of motor function.

BACKGROUND: The aims of this study were to measure objectively the extent and severity of motor impairment in children with Asperger's syndrome and to determine whether the motor difficulties experienced by such children differed in any way from those classified as having a Specific Developmental Disorder of Motor Function (SDD-MF). Criteria derived from ICD 10-R were used to identify 11 children with Asperger's syndrome and a matched group of 9 children with a Specific Developmental Disorder of Motor Function. Children in both groups were required to have a verbal IQ of 80 or greater on the WISC IIIR. METHOD: The Autism Diagnostic Interview (Revised; Lord, Rutter, & LeCouteur, 1994) was used to identify features of AS in the first group and to exclude them in the latter. The Movement Assessment Battery for Children (Henderson & Sugden, 1992) provided a standardised test of motor impairment. A Gesture Test based on that by Cermak, Coster, and Drake (1980) was used to assess the child's ability to mime the use of familiar tools and to imitate meaningless sequences of movements. RESULTS: All the children with Asperger's syndrome turned out to meet our criterion for a diagnosis of motor impairment, five of the six most severely motor impaired children in the whole study being from this group. Performance of the Asperger group was also slightly poorer on the Gesture Test. The profile of performance on each test was examined in detail but no evidence of group differences in the pattern of impairment was found. CONCLUSIONS: This study is consistent with others suggesting a high prevalence of clumsiness in Asperger's syndrome. Our findings also attest to the widespread prevalence of motor impairment in developmental disorders and the problems such co-morbidity poses for attempts to posit discrete and functionally coherent impairments underlying distinct syndromes.

Asperger Syndrome↗

Comorbid anxiety symptoms in children with pervasive developmental disorders.

The present study examined the prevalence of comorbid anxiety symptoms in 44 children with pervasive developmental disorders. Parents of the children were interviewed using the Anxiety Disorders section of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children. Results indicated that severe anxiety symptoms are highly prevalent in children with pervasive developmental disorders: 84.1% of the children met the full criteria for at least one anxiety disorder. Furthermore, 72.7% of the children displayed ritualistic behaviors. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Adolescent↗

Psychiatric and developmental disorders in families of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether a pediatric family history obtained via a brief parent interview would reveal a high prevalence of psychiatric and developmental disorders in the family members of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) compared with a group of children with another chronic developmental disability, Down syndrome (DS). DESIGN: A controlled cross-sectional group comparison study. SETTING: An interdisciplinary hyperactivity and learning problem clinic and a DS clinic located in a large, urban tertiary care teaching hospital in Chicago, Ill. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 140 children with ADHD and 163 children with DS of comparable socioeconomic status. MEASURES: Using a screening questionnaire and parent interview, the development pediatricians obtained a family history. RESULTS: By parent report, children with ADHD were significantly more likely than the control children with DS to have a parent affected by alcoholism (P = .007), other drug abuse (P < .001), depression (P < .001), delinquency (P < .001), learning disabilities (P < .001), and ADHD (P < .001). Similar patterns were evidenced in other first- and second-degree relatives. CONCLUSIONS: The high reported frequency of psychiatric and developmental disorders in the families of children with ADHD requires that the treating clinician explore the area of family psychiatric and developmental history and use the findings to formulate a comprehensive treatment plan that includes anticipatory guidance and psychosocial intervention.

Adolescent↗

DSM-III and DSM-III-R diagnosis of autism and pervasive developmental disorder in nursery school children.

DSM-III and DSM-III-R diagnoses of 112 developmentally disordered preschool children were compared. There was no significant difference between the DSM-III and DSM-III-R diagnosis of the inclusive category of pervasive developmental disorder, but nearly twice as many cases (58) were diagnosed as autistic disorder by DSM-III-R criteria as were diagnosed as infantile autism (31) by DSM-III. Thirty children met both DSM-III and DSM-III-R criteria for autism (IA/AD) and 23 received a DSM-III diagnosis of atypical PDD (A-PDD) and a DSM-III-R diagnosis of AD (A-PDD/AD). All of the IA/AD children and none of the A-PDD/AD group displayed a marked lack of awareness of others. DSM-III-R criteria have specifically broadened the concept of autism to include children who, although socially impaired, are not pervasively unresponsive to others.

Autistic Disorder↗

Psychotherapy of children with pervasive developmental disorders.

In recent years, the role of psychotherapy in the treatment of children with pervasive developmental disorders, such as autism and Asperger's Syndrome, has been questioned. Advances in neuropsychiatry, neuropsychology, and genetics, as well as the refinement of behavioral and educational techniques, have relegated discussions about psychotherapy mostly to reviews about the history of treatment for autism. Even when psychotherapeutic work is suggested, it is typically only very structured supportive counseling for older and high functioning children and adolescents that is considered. This paper argues that there is a central role for psychotherapy for children with pervasive developmental disorders, and that psychotherapeutic interventions should begin at a younger, rather than older age.

Adolescent↗

Interdisciplinary treatment of encopresis in individuals with developmental disorders: need and efficacy.

The specific target behavior of encopresis in individuals with mental retardation and developmental disorders (MR/DD) is not well-defined in the literature on encopresis or in the literature on specific interventions with MR/DD populations. The criteria for establishing a diagnosis of encopresis in individuals with MR/DD are not clear. The literature on encopresis was reviewed for two factors: (1) definitions according to three major definitional criteria of age, defecation patterns and etiology; and (2) the relationship between etiology and intervention in specific, MR/DD, and nonspecific populations. This review yielded no clinical description of encopresis in MR/DD children, no guidelines for differentiating encopresis from generalized developmental delay and no substantive treatment guidelines. Although no definitions or treatment formulations specific to MR/DD were identified, information and definitional guidelines derived from the general literature on encopresis are relevant to identification, definition and treatment issues for MR/DD populations. Interdisciplinary or team approaches are appropriate for individuals with multiple problems or developmental disorders and intractable encopresis. An interdisciplinary approach, neurodevelopmental-behavioral intervention, which was successfully employed with a 5-year-old encopretic child with multiple developmental problems, is described.

Age Factors↗

Radiological diagnosis of developmental disorders of the nervous system and adjacent structures.

On the basis of the author's own experiences and drawing on data available in the literature, present possibilities of neuroradiological diagnosis of developmental disorders of the spine and skull, developmental anomalies of meninges of the brain and the spinal cord and of the central nervous system, the brain and the spinal cord are discussed. The rapid development of investigative methods in the past decades has brought about an immense amount of new information gained in the diagnosis of these anomalies and has facilitated their early detection and a more accurate evaluation. The morphological aspect is not, however, the only factor in the estimation of the clinical relevance of these disorders. For this reason not only the morphological, but also the functional relationship of developmental disorders of the nervous system to the adjacent structures is emphasized and, on the other hand, the influence of these anomalies on the nervous system is discussed. Many years' experiences in clinical neurology and problems of manual medicine indicate that these relations may be the cause of the various clinical symptoms. In this respect the presented findings mean a contribution to the treatment of the clinical complaints that are pathogenetically related to developmental disorders.

Bone Diseases, Developmental↗

Multiplex developmental disorders. The role of communication in the construction of a self.

This article discusses the integration of various aspects of the child's development, particularly the development of language and communication and the way in which these developments interact to enable the child to construct a coherent sense of self. Multiplex developmental disorder is presented as an example of a disorder that affects several of these crucial strands of development. Recent research and controversies regarding the diagnostic descriptions of multiplex and other pervasive developmental disorders are presented. This discussion is used to illustrate the ways in which such disorders affect not only the individual aspects of development, but the child's ability to form a cohesive sense of self. The implications of these difficulties in self-definition for treating children with disorders that affect a variety of aspects of development are also discussed.

Child↗

Are patients with social developmental disorders prosopagnosic? Perceptual heterogeneity in the Asperger and socio-emotional processing disorders.

It has been hypothesized that social developmental disorders (SDD) like autism, Asperger's disorder and the social-emotional processing disorder may be associated with prosopagnosic-like deficits in face recognition. We studied the ability to recognize famous faces in 24 adults with a variety of SDD diagnoses. We also measured their ability to discriminate changes in internal facial configuration, a perceptual function that is important in face recognition, and their imagery for famous faces, an index of their facial memory stores. We contrasted their performance with both healthy subjects and prosopagnosic patients. We also performed a cluster analysis of the SDD patients. One group of eight SDD subjects performed normally on all tests of face perception and recognition. The other 16 subjects were impaired in recognition, though most were better than prosopagnosic patients. One impaired SDD subgroup had poor perception of facial structure but relatively preserved imagery, resembling prosopagnosic patients with medial occipitotemporal lesions. Another subgroup had better perception than imagery, resembling one prosopagnosic with bilateral anterior temporal lesions. Overall, SDD subgroup membership by face recognition did not correlate with a particular SDD diagnosis or subjective ratings of social impairment. We conclude that the social disturbance in SDD does not invariably lead to impaired face recognition. Abnormal face recognition in some SDD subjects is related to impaired perception of facial structure in a manner suggestive of occipitotemporal dysfunction. Heterogeneity in the perceptual processing of faces may imply pathogenetic heterogeneity, with important implications for genetic and rehabilitative studies of SDD.

Adolescent↗

The presentation of anxiety in children with pervasive developmental disorders.

OBJECTIVE: Although the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed. (DSM-IV) diagnostic criteria generally discourage the diagnosis of other Axis I disorders in children with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD), anxiety symptoms are often observed in this clinical population. Moreover, there are some albeit limited data that suggest an association between anxiety and psychotic symptoms in children. Because co-occurring psychiatric symptoms have important clinical implications, this study examined anxiety and psychotic symptoms in children with and without PDD. METHOD: Parents and teachers completed the Early Childhood Inventory-4 (ECI-4) or the Child Symptom Inventory (CSI-4) for children evaluated in a developmental disabilities clinic (PDD) or a child psychiatry outpatient clinic (non-PDD). Children were divided into four groups: 3-5- year-olds with (n = 182) and without (n = 135) PDD, and 6-12-year-olds with (n = 301) and without (n = 191) PDD. The 6-12-year-olds were further divided into high-anxious and low-anxious subgroups based on CSI-4 ratings and compared with regard to severity of psychotic symptoms. RESULTS: Teachers rated preschoolers with PDD as exhibiting more severe anxiety symptoms than the non-PDD group; however, the converse was true for parent ratings. For 6-12- year-olds, both parents and teachers rated children with PDD as significantly more anxious than non-PDD clinic referrals. In general, the severity of anxiety symptoms varied by PDD subtype (Asperger's disorder > PDDNOS > Autistic disorder) and IQ (high > low). Furthermore, highly anxious 6-12-year-olds with PDD received significantly higher parent and teacher ratings of psychotic symptom severity (strange behaviors, hearing voices, illogical thinking, inappropriate affect, and odd thoughts) than our low-anxious group, even when controlling for PDD symptom severity. Moreover, the relation between anxiety level and psychotic symptom severity was similar for both PDD and non-PDD children. Parent and teachers differed in their perceptions of the severity of specific anxiety symptoms. In addition, parent- versus teacher-defined anxiety level groups varied with regard to the differential severity of psychotic symptoms. This finding highlights the importance of continued investigation of source-specific syndromes in children with PDD. Two case vignettes are presented. CONCLUSION: Anxiety appears to be a clinically important concern in many children with PDD. Similarities in anxiety symptom presentation and their association with psychotic symptoms in both children with and without PDD support the possibility of: (1) psychiatric comorbidity in the former; (2) at least some overlap in causal mechanisms for anxiety and psychotic symptoms in both PDD and non-PDD children; and (3) a unique diagnostic entity comprised of PDD, anxiety, and psychotic symptoms. Lastly, clinicians should seriously consider dual diagnoses in children with PDD.

Anxiety Disorders↗

Risperidone in pervasive developmental disorders.

Atypical antipsychotics are increasingly used in the treatment of severe behavioral disturbances in people with pervasive developmental disorders. Among these compounds, risperidone has been the most broadly studied. This drug profile will review the available data on the use of risperidone in individuals with pervasive developmental disorders. In addition, the chemistry, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and metabolism of risperidone are discussed. Emphasis will be placed on adverse effects associated with risperidone in these people, including a discussion of measures that can be taken to monitor for these effects. Finally, a discussion of the future direction of risperidone use in this population and key issues will be presented.

Antipsychotic Agents↗

Immunoreactivity of sera to a peptide derived from the serotonin 5-HT1A receptor in a group of children with developmental disorders: possible role in non-autistic epilepsy.

The presence of autoantibodies against the serotoninergic 5-HT1A receptor has been reported in serum from an autistic child using radioligand binding studies. It is now well established that, in cardiovascular diseases with an autoimmune component, patients present in their sera autoantibodies directed against the second extracellular loop of some G-protein coupled membrane receptors. We thus investigated by an enzyme-immunoassay method the presence of anti-5-HT1A receptor antibodies in sera of children with developmental disorders using synthetic peptides corresponding to the first and the second extracellular loops of this receptor. The population of children with developmental disorders was divided in autistic children with or without EEG abnormalities, and in non-autistic children with or without EEG abnormalities. We found that 6 out of 10 sera of non-autistic children with an abnormal EEG recognized the second extracellular loop of the 5-HT1A receptor. This is significantly higher than the other groups of children with developmental disorders or a healthy control group. These observations support the existence of an autoimmune component in epilepsy.

Adolescent↗

Dental and minor physical anomalies in children with developmental disorders--a discriminant analysis.

A discriminant analysis was performed in a sample of 303 children with developmental disorders (DD) and 303 healthy controls (C) in order to test whether some oro-dental and physical minor anomalies could discriminate these groups of children. DD sample comprised 176 mentally retarded (MR) children. 70 children with impaired hearing (IH) and 57 children with impaired vision (IV). The control group included 303 healthy subjects, matched for sex and age. The analysis comprised seven common oral and dental anomalies: median diastema, hypodontia, impacted teeth, microdontia, dens invaginatus, upper lip frenulum and frenulum of the tongue. Minor physical anomalies were assessed by the method proposed by Waldrop et al., as the average number of minor anomalies per individual (W1) and as the weighted score of minor anomalies (W2). Three discriminant functions were obtained by analysis of nine initial variables. Distinct discrimination and considerable distances were found between the centroids of the controls and all groups of DD children. The first two discriminant functions were significant for discrimination between the groups and they explained 98.6% of the total variance. The first function contained 90.2% of information and was defined by the number and weighted scores of minor anomalies. The second variable explained 8.4% of the total variability and was defined by three dental anomalies. The results obtained by the discriminant analysis show that application of dental and minor physical anomalies enables discrimination between the group of healthy children and the groups of children with different developmental disorders.

Adolescent↗