People with intellectual disabilities: Emotional needs of children with intellectual disabilities are unidentified

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7471.917

BMJ 2004;329:917 (16 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7471.917

Letter

People with intellectual disabilities

Emotional needs of children with intellectual disabilities are unidentified

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Cooper et al discuss the differing needs of peoplewith intellectual disabilities.¹ In recent years health policydocuments highlighting the needs of children with intellectualdisabilities have been many. Although they recognise the differentphysical and emotional needs of these children, little is knownabout this deprived and disadvantaged group.

Intellectual disability has traditionally been an exclusioncriterion in research studies. At one time, clinical lore believedthat children with intellectual disability did not have behaviouralproblems and that any inappropriate behaviour displayed wassecondary to their mental handicap. This view is not supportedby current evidence, recent studies having shown that they areprone to emotional and behavioural problems.² These are, however,often underdiagnosed because of issues such as "diagnostic overshadowing,"the tendency of clinicians to overlook additional psychiatricdiagnosis once intellectual disability has been diagnosed,³and "masking," whereby clinical characteristics of emotionaland behavioural problems are . . . [Full text of this article]