SPECIFIC LANGUAGE RETARDATION IN EDUCATIO NALLY SUBNORMAL CHILDREN

The frequencies of specific language retardation and deficits in short term memory span are the subject of this epidemiological investigatio n of children attending the first grade of a special school for educat ionally subnormal children in Erlangen and Munchen/Rosenheim. The chil dren at the mean age of seven were examined according to the ,,Multi-a xial Classification of Child Psychiatric Disorders''. The following pr evalances were found: 16 children (21%) of the sample from Erlangen an d 24 children (33%) of the sample from Munchen/Rosenheim had an specif ic language retardation, in both sample the most frequent disorders we re retardations of the expressive language (11% and 21%). In both samp le most children had substantially deficits in the acoustic short term memory span, while they were better on visual short term memory span. Significant correlations between acoustic short term memory span and specific language retardations were found.