Clinics in Developmental Medicine No. 38: The Neurological Examination of the Child With Minor Nervous Dysfunction.

Abstract

Many of the previous volumes in the series Clinics in Developmental Medicine have concentrated on selected aspects of the neurological examination in children, such as Nos. 21/22, Neurological Examination of Children, by Paine and Oppee, and No. 1, The Neurological Examination of the Infant, by Andre-Thomas et al. The present volume, No. 38, deals with examination techniques in eliciting minor neurological primarily motor abnormalities in children ages 3 through 10. The authors propose a standardized technique for making a quantitative evaluation of the neurological examination. The tests are ones commonly used by most pediatric neurologists, but the authors have developed a scoring system, 0-2, 0-3, etc, for recording deviations from normal patterns. It is analogous to the physchological tests of Reitan, where elements of the neurological exam are given a numerical score and incorporated into the total evaluation. The whole area of minor neurological dysfunction, often called soft signs,