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How Specific Are “Specific Developmental Disorders”? The Relevance of the Concept of Specific Developmental Disorders for the Classification of Childhood Developmental Disorders
Author(s) -
Rispens Jan,
Yperen Tom A.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of child psychology and psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.652
H-Index - 211
eISSN - 1469-7610
pISSN - 0021-9630
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-7610.1997.tb01519.x
Subject(s) - psychology , relevance (law) , language development , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , developmental disorder , communication disorder , language disorder , cognition , autism , neuroscience , political science , law
The concept of “specific developmental disorder” (SDD) refers to delays in developmental domains such as language and speech development, motor coordination or the development of scholastic skills, in the absence of sensory deficits, subnormal intelligence or poor educational conditions. The key element in this concept is the notion of a discrepancy between observed and expected level of development In DSM III‐ R and ICD 10. SDD serves as a conceptual umbrella, suggesting that the subsumed disorders are of the same type. In DSM‐IV. the SDD umbrella is not used explicitly, but the notion of a discrepaney is present in the categories of Learning Disorders. Motor Skill Disorder and Communication Disorders, suggesting a close relationship between these disorders. One of the advantages of the use of SDD as a unifying concept is that ii contributes to the. standardisation of the description off the various disorders. However, bused on reviews of research regarding the reliability and validity of the SDD categories, we argue that the application of n unifying SDD concept has been premature. For each of the categories for disorders in scholastic skills, language, speech and motor coordination the notion of a discrepancy between observed find expected level of development should be elaborated and tested more thoroughly, before SDD can be used as a unifying concept in classification.