Psychiatric disorder in mentally retarded children and adolescents - The challenges of meaningful diagnosis

The prevalence of psychiatric disorder in mentally retarded children and adolescents is considerably higher than it is in nonretarded youngsters. This is due to greatly increased neurobiologic and psychosocial risk. The types of psychiatric disorders that are found in this population include all major categories found in the nonretarded population. Particularly in more severely retarded youngsters, however, unusual patterns of aberrant behavior also are found. These latter disorders often are very severe and require vigorous treatment. Accurate diagnosis of these types of disorder is particularly critical but also complex and controversial. A wide variety of pharmacologic treatments has been described for these disorders, and these are reviewed.