Clinical and sociodemographic features of children and adolescents with specific learning disorder

Objective: We examined retrospectively the data collected in Ankara Pediatric & Pediatric Hematology Oncology Training and Research Hospital Child Psychiatry Department from May 2012 to May 2013 to detect and evaluate of child or adolescent with specific learning disorder (SLD).

Method: All data recorded over a-year period in Child Psychiatry Department were reviewed. Data of children (under 12-year-old group) or adolescents (12-year-old and above group) diagnosed with SLD according to the DSM-IV-TR criteria were analyzed. Clinical and sociodemographic features of them were entered SPSS 17.0 software. To make an analysis of a relation between IQ scores and SLD subtypes One-way ANOVA test and any association between SLD subtypes and sex or age groups Univariate variance analysis were used. p<0.05 was accepted as the threshold for statistical significance.

Results: We found the record of total 716 children or adolescents within the total 25.013 admission over in a year-period (2.9%). In sampling, 65.4% (n=468) of them were boys and 87.2% of them were under 12-year-old group. Mean age of patients was 8.9±1.7 years of age (6 to 14 years). Boys/girls ratio was 1.8:1 and children/adolescents ratio was 6.8:1. SLD subtypes distribution was the following:71.6% (n=513) of all patients had “reading disorder”, 12.4% of all (n=89) had “disorder of written expression”, 5% of all (n=36) had “mathematics disorder” and 10.9% of all (n=78) had “learning disorder not otherwise specified”. 58.5% (n=419) of them had no any comorbid psychiatric disorders whilst 16.1% (n=115) of children or adolescents had borderline intellectual functioning (full-scale IQ scores: 70-79), 14.4% (n=103) of all had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and 5% (n=36) of all had any of anxiety disorders. Neither verbal IQ scores nor performance IQ scores obtained from Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) were not significantly different between four subtypes of SLD (F=2.401, p=0.067 for verbal IQ; F=1.604, p=0.187 for performance IQ, respectively). Also any relation were not found between subtypes of SLD and sex (F=2.151, p=0.093 for verbal IQ, and F=0.426, p=0.734 for performance IQ) or age groups (F=1.945, p=0.144 for verbal IQ; and F=0.251, p=0.778 for performance IQ) in terms of each IQ scores distribution as well.

Conclusion: In conclusion, the number of boys with SLD was almost twice as high as the number of girls. Moreover, SLD seen in an age group under 12 was nearly 7 times higher than observed in adolescents. Any type of SLD did not show any significant difference in verbal or performance IQ scores terms. It might be inferred from this result that the patterns of verbal or performance scores of WISC-R are not specific for any learning disorder subtypes. In literature, a similar result with this has been reported before by Anguilli and Siegel. Further research would make clear the relation between cognitive measurements by using a number of intelligence scales and specific learning disorder.