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Mixed specific developmental disorders in children
Medical expert of the article
Last reviewed: 07.07.2025
A group of disorders characterized by the presence in one person of specific disorders of speech development, school skills, motor functions without a significant predominance of one of the defects necessary for making a primary diagnosis. A common feature for this category of disorders is their combination with some degree of impairment of cognitive functions. This poorly defined and insufficiently clearly outlined diagnostic rubric in ICD-10, according to clinical descriptions, is close to the diagnostic category of "mental retardation" that was widely used and continues to be used in Russian psychiatry, with the allocation of its dysontogenetic and encephalopathic forms.
ICD-10 code
F83 Mixed specific disorders of psychological development.
Epidemiology
Most often, domestic psychiatrists cite the following statistics among primary school students: 4.6-5.8% of children with mental retardation.
Causes and pathogenesis
In the genesis of the above disorders, the leading role is given to biological factors, including hereditary predisposition and minor tissue damage to brain structures as a result of exogenous-organic effects with subsequent disruption of the formation of interanalyzer connections. Social factors, such as information deficit associated with a low level of family, neglect, aggravate the manifestations of mixed developmental disorder. Pathogenesis has not been sufficiently studied. It is assumed that in some cases the mechanism of delayed maturation and functional immaturity of the corresponding brain structures prevails, in others - the mechanism of loss of structural and functional elements that ensure a higher level of intellectual development.
Symptoms
The clinical picture is polymorphic, includes both signs of mild general mental retardation and, in various combinations, specific disorders of speech development and school skills. Dyslexia is a reading disorder, dysgraphia is various types of writing disorders, including orthographic dysgraphia, which manifests itself in the inability to logically use and control well-learned spelling rules in writing, dyscalculia is a counting disorder. In encephalopathic forms, these disorders are combined with various complicating symptoms (psychopathic-like, neurosis-like disorders, cerebral asthenia, etc.).
Treatment
Children with this form of disorder should be under the supervision of a child psychiatrist. This is necessary not only for adequate drug treatment, psychotherapy, but also to resolve the issue of the form of education together with psychologists and defectologists. Children with mental retardation in our country are traditionally taught in specialized correction classes with a simplified program in general education schools. Transfer to a type VIII school (auxiliary) is carried out in cases where the level of general mental retardation corresponds to mental retardation.
Forecast
While there is a clear trend for impairment to decrease with age, lower levels of cognitive performance persist into adolescence and throughout adulthood.
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