Language Disorders in Children Referred for Psychiatric Services

Surveys of language-impaired children at speech and hearing clinics invariably show a high frequency of psychiatric disorders. However, there have been few investigations of the frequency of developmental language disorders in children referred for psychiatric services, although the presence of such a disorder would clearly be expected to influence diagnosis and treatment. In this survey of 40 consecutive admissions to a child psychiatry inpatient service, at least half of the children had moderate to severe developmental language disorders. The disorders were found in children with a wide variety of psychiatric diagnoses, and routine intellectual testing did not invariably detect the presence of developmental dysphasia. Recommendations for screening, diagnosis and treatment of language-disordered children with psychiatric problems are given.