Intellectual disability and psychopathology in Australian children

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Abstract
It is a myth that intellectual disability somehow precludes children and adolescents from being emotionally responsive and being open to suffer from psychopathological disorders. Evidence will be presented that at least 30 per cent of intellectually disabled children and adolescents suffer from a range of serious emotional and behavioural disorders, many of which are the same as those suffered by children of normal intelligence, but at a rate two to three times that of other children. Agreement on a common approach to the classification and diagnosis of these disorders is lacking, but there is evidence that depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder and other psychopathological disorders of childhood can occur in intellectually disabled children. It is also possible that there are some patterns of psychopathology that are more exclusive and require further research, in order to understand their diagnostic status, etiology and management. There is no doubt that this psychopathology is a major source of distress for the children, their families and those involved in their care, but research and our understanding of effective treatments is still lacking. The value of attempting to make a clinical psychiatric assessment of intellectually disabled children with severe emotional and behavioural problems will be highlighted by several case examples.

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