Behavioural problems of 8-year-old children with and without intellectual disability

Abstract

The aim was to study the prevalence of behavioural and emotional problems among 8-year-old children with intellectual disability (ID) and to compare their results to those obtained among the general child population in the same cohort. In a prospective birth cohort study, parents filled in two questionnaires and teachers assessed children’s behaviour using the Rutter scale (RB2). At the age of seven, the Northern Finland Birth cohort 1985/86 included 9357 children, of whom 106 had an intellectual disability. 44.4% of the children with ID and 14.1% of the children without ID showed probable psychiatric disturbances. In the group of children with ID, behavioural (20.8%) and emotional (18.1%) problems were almost equally common, and hyper-activity problems were frequent (36.1%), whereas in the group of children without ID, behavioural problems (9.1%) and hyperactivity (9.3%) were more common than emotional problems (4.9%). In both groups, boys had more problems than girls, even though the difference was not statistically significant among the children with ID. Over one third of the children with ID had additional disabilities, but these did not increase the risk of having behavioural problems. Because children’s psychiatric disorders and behavioural problems are not only very distressing to them and their families but also have a negative impact on their learning at school, peer relationships and social competence, more attention should be paid to preventing them by educational and environmental interventions that support parents and teachers. (J Pediatr Neurol 2003; 1(1): 15-24).