Brain Disorder

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Brain Disorder

Although serious physical disease of any kind can predispose to psychological problems in childhood, brain disorders are the most important. In the Isle of Wight Study, about 7% of physically healthy children aged 10-11 years were classified as having psychiatric problems, compared with about 12% of physically ill children of the same age and 34% of children with brain disorders (Rutter et al. 1976b). The high prevalence in the latter group was not explained by the adverse social factors known to be associated with the risk of brain disorder. Nor is it likely to have been due to physical disability as such, because rates of psychiatric disorder are less in children equally disabled by muscular disorders.

The rate of psychiatric disorder among children with brain\damage is related to the severity of the damage, though not closely to the site. It, is as common among brain-injured girls as boys, a finding which contrasts with the higher rate of psychiatric disorder among boys in the general population.

Children with brain injury are more likely to develop psychiatric disorder if they encounter adverse psychosocial influences of the kind that provoke psychiatric disorder in children without brain damage (see, for example, the study of children with head injury by Rutter et al. 1983).

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