Journal of Intellectual Disability - Diagnosis and Treatment

1-11

Authors: Moushami S. Kadkol

Sensory Processing (SP) difficulties in children are seen to be increasing in today's world. Quite a few typically developing children are reported to have difficulties in coping with school, home and play environments. Their difficulties are mostly labeled abnormal behaviors and with superficial assessments these children often receive traditional treatments that marginally decrease their problems without giving long term functional gains. Hence their SP dysfunctions make them adopt pathological behaviors as they grow, making them incompetent as compared to their peers. One of the factors behind these children getting unnoticed at an early age is lack of awareness about SP difficulties among the parents, teachers and medical fraternity in India. The other important factors include unavailability of contributory study in this area done on the Indian population and the use of non-normated, generalized evaluation tools done for evaluation of these difficulties. Further less information on what is age related typical SP makes it trickier to differentiate between a typical behavior and SP difficulty. The present study is the first study that would make an effort to understand the age related SP in Indian preschoolers aged 3-7 years. The QOSP includes observations based on literature and theoretical constructs of SP which are graded and made quantitative for ease of administration and interpretation. This study intends to establish the age appropriate expected response and estimate the children posing risk to develop SP dysfunctions. The study further attempts to understand correlations between the different parameters of QOSP and tries to identify those parameters that can be considered red flags for SP difficulties. The results of the study suggest about 3% of children in the typically developing group to be at the risk of having SP difficulties. About 20% are estimated to be having difficulties in at least one of the SP areas when compared with behaviors rated on Sensory Processing Measure. Apart from typically developing children the tool was also used in co-morbid conditions and was found to be useful in understanding the underlying Sensory Processing difficulties. Thus the QOSP can be considered a good measure not only in screening children with suspected sensory processing difficulties but also to gear the intervention program to be streamlined and goal oriented.

21-32

Authors: Margareta Adolfsson, Christina Westerberg, Kerstin Möller

This study investigated present and future everyday life situations (ELS) in home, school, work, and leisure environments for a group of school-aged children with severe disabilities, including complex disorders and a combination of disabilities. The purpose was to explore universal ELS; clarify how the children can be supported in their development of autonomy; and to gather information on potential overall goals for interventions. To make data comparable, all reported ELS were linked to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, Child and Youth version (ICF-CY) and listed along with information on the setting. Both today, and in the future, recreational activities and participation in school or work were of highest importance, but few reported ELS involved directly interacting with other children. More ELS were predicted to occur outside the home and with a higher degree of autonomy. Therefore, interventions would be focused on the overall goal that children with severe disabilities take initiatives to become independent and to form relationships with others.

42-45

Authors: Paula Approbato de Oliveira, Carolina Fuentes Moreira, Sandra Scivoletto, Cristiana Castanho de Almeida Rocca, Daniel Fuentes, Paulo Jannuzzi Cunha

Background: Studies have shown that stressful events in childhood are associated with impairments in cognitive functions and intellectual disability. Objective: Compare the intellectual functioning in groups of Brazilian children and adolescents with a history of stressful events with lifetime history of depression and without lifetime history of depression. Method: 30 children and adolescents underwent psychiatric evaluation and neuropsychological assessment of estimated intellectual quotient (EIQ), verbal knowledge, and visuospatial skills. Results: 15 patients (50%) had EIQ within the average and 6 had EIQ in the lower average (20%) for Brazilian standardized norms. The other part had at least some degree of intellectual disability and they were classified as: 2 mild mental retardation (6.7%) and 7 borderline (23.3%). Also, half of the sample had at least one lifetime depressive episode, and the performance in EIQ and visuospatial skills was worse in this group. Conclusion: 50% of the children and adolescents with a history of early stressful events and social deprivation had at least some degree of intellectual disability. In addition, a subgroup with history of depressive episodes had worse EIQ performance when compared to those without depression, possibly due to a greater impairment in visuospatial skills. The specific role of impaired right cerebral hemisphere, corpus callosum, and prefrontal cortex associated with depressive disorders and maltreatment should be investigated in further studies.

54-58

Authors: Andrew Donohue, Jack Samuels, Robert Thompson, Clarence Watson, Gerard Gallucci

Individuals with intellectual disability are over-represented in forensic settings, including jails, prisons and forensic psychiatric treatment units. Identification of intellectual disability is important in such settings, especially in light of the implications of intellectual disability in legal issues including competency to stand trial, criminal responsibility and capital sentencing. We examined the utility of a brief test of intelligence (PROFOKS), assessing knowledge of proverbs, fund of knowledge and similarities in a series of 29 inpatients residing in a forensic psychiatric unit. PROFOKS correlated strongly with performance on the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI), including the full scale, verbal and performance IQs and WASI subscales. The PROFOKS appears to be a useful screening tool in identifying intellectual disability in a forensic psychiatric population

68-82

Authors: Janet L. Dodd, Lauren K. Franke, Jeanette K. Grzesik, Jenna Stoskopf

Legal mandates established under IDEA specify a student must be assessed in all areas of suspected disability. Never is this task more overwhelming than its application to the assessment of a student suspected of a diagnosis of autism. The assessment of an individual suspected of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis is a complex task and is dependent on the integration of information gleaned from assessments conducted by an array of professionals, each with their own distinct area of expertise. The purpose of this article is to introduce the Comprehensive Multidisciplinary Assessment Protocols-Autism Spectrum Disorder, referred to as the CMAPs, as a mechanism for organizing multidisciplinary team assessments. The CMAPs were developed in response to the challenges experienced by school-based assessment teams in developing appropriate and legally defensible assessment plans. The CMAPs provide teams a systematic, organizational, and comprehensive platform to organize the assessment of students across the spectrum of the disorder with the goal of making the task less overwhelming. Each assessment protocol considers the assessment needs of individuals with ASD using their communication skills as a preliminary starting point.