Childhood-onset schizophrenia is an exceedingly rare mental illness whose complex, multifaceted behavioral presentation can disrupt child development and raise diagnostic and treatment difficulties for attending clinicians. The disorder, affecting one in 30,000 children, shares the same diagnostic criteria and symptoms as its adult counterpart,…

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common childhood neurobehavioural disorder defined by symptoms of developmentally inappropriate inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity. As is the norm for most psychiatric phenotypes, traditional aetiological studies have focused primarily on the interplay between genetic and environmental…

Twenty-five autistic children were compared with 25 controls for number of factors identified as optimal in the pre-, peri-, and neonatal period, as noted in medical records. Autistic Ss showed greatly reduced optimality, especially with regard to prenatal factors, in contrast with other reports denying brain injury in autism. (Author/CL)

Children (N=434) with nonsyndromic mental retardation were analysed for frequency of prenatal, perinatal and infantile biological disturbances. Mildly retarded individuals of unrelated parentage, both idiopathic and familial, had a strikingly higher prevalence of disturbances than a control group of retarded individuals with consanguineous parents…

From 1973 to 1983 the number and proportion of mentally retarded persons in the total population of Sweden has not changed, but there are fewer children and young persons and more adults. The changes are hypothetically attributed to prenatal diagnosis, improved obstetrical techniques, and the introduction of antibiotics in 1948. (Author/VW)

Examination of 1,000 Finnish patients with mental retardation indicated that infectious diseases were the only cause of mental retardation in 11.1 percent and a contributory cause in a further 1.5 percent. Among the former group of 111 patients, the causative infectious disease operated prenatally in 18 percent and perinatally/postnatally in 82…

Pregnancy and delivery complications in the birth of 23 high-functioning autistic females and 23 high-functioning autistic males of similar intelligence quotient and age were compared with those of 54 normally developing siblings. Findings suggest that these factors may be less significant in high-functioning individuals than in severely retarded…

The first complex etiological study of mental retardation in Budapest was carried out with 1,364 children ages 7 to 14 years. Results are compared with findings from previous surveys in the United States and the United Kingdom. (Author)

This paper presents two case studies of children who developed herpes virus infection in the intrauterine or early postnatal period and presented with features of autism around two years of age. Other research suggesting a link between herpes and autism is reviewed. (DB)

Examines the biological factors underlying autism, focusing on research in four areas: (1) neurological abnormalities; (2) biochemical abnormalities; (3) genetic problems; and (4) problems during pregnancy or birth. Maintains that autism is a heterogeneous disorder and that there is no unified model that explains its etiology. (Author/KB)

No significant differences in the obstetric complication measures were found among the various diagnostic groupings of 61 psychologically or behaviorally disturbed children, nor between any complication measures and any of the three disturbed behavior patterns identified (psychotic withdrawal, acting-out aggression, organic signs). (KW)