Psychiatric symptoms in children with intellectual disability

In a sample of almost 6000 8-year-old children, we found that 1.5% attended special schools for the educationally subnormal, or training schools. Psyc hiatric symptoms were studied by means of three screening instruments: the Rutter Parent Questionnaire (RA2) for the parents, the Rutter Teacher Quest ionnaire (RB2) for the teachers, and the Children's Depression Inventory (C DI) for the children. The prevalence rate of children identified as possibl y suffering from a psychiatric disturbance was 32.2% according to the RA2. The corresponding prevalence rate for the RB2 was 34.2%. According to the C DI 11.0% had depressive disturbance. All types of disturbances were more fr equent among the intellectually disabled children as compared to the nondis abled children. The differences were statistically significant for emotiona l and mixed types of disturbance on the RA2, and for emotional and conduct types of disturbance on the RB2.