ENVIRONMENTALLY DETERMINED LANGUAGE DISORDERS IN ICD AND DSM

Despite the clinical recognition of the environmentally determined lan guage disorder (EDLD), ICD-10 and DSM-IV do not offer a separate categ ory for this syndrome. In a clinical study, involving 580 children age d one to seven years, we investigated whether various arguments pertai ning to clinical relevance and validity would support or oppose the in clusion of an EDLD category. The results indicate that clinical EDLD d iagnoses are not rare. We also found that the only way of knowing for certain whether a clinician has diagnosed an environmentally determine d language disorder is by allowing for an EDLD classification, and not by using combinations of classifications for eg an unspecific languag e disorder and various abnormal psychosocial situations. Furthermore, as a group, the EDLD cases in our study complied with descriptions gen erally given for this syndrome. In all, we suggest that the question w hether ICD and DSM should include an EDLD category deserves more atten tion.