[Behavioral problems in children with specific and pervasive developmental disorders, evaluated with the psychopathology assessment scale (AMDP)].

Children with specific developmental disorders of speech and language have an increased rate of psychiatric disorder compared to children developing normally. Children with early infantile autism show psychopathological symptoms in addition to those that are required for the diagnosis. These are often important in daily dealings with the children. As part of a larger study 4 groups of school age children (21 with normal development, 18 with an expressive language disorder, 21 with a receptive language disorder and 11 children with early infantile autism) were rated according to the psychopathological documentation for children (AMDP) within the assessment situation and according to reports of the behaviour outside. Several items were added to include symptoms that are not rated in the present documentation. Significant differences in the means were found between the group of children with autism and the control group. The children with language disorder showed a high variance which was interpreted as a sign for a heterogeneous group. Several of the added items improve the documentation of psychopathological findings in young school children.