PERCEPTUAL, MOTOR AND ATTENTIONAL DEFICITS IN SIX‐YEAR‐OLD CHILDREN

Abstract

ABSTRACT. 3448 six‐year‐old Swedish children were screened for perceptual, motor and attentional deficlts with the help of a questionnaire containing 34 yes‐no questions. Epidemiological aspects of single symptoms and of groups of symptoms are presented. Boys displayed many more problems than girls. Children attending day nurseries had more problems than part‐time pre‐school children, particularly as regards attention and behaviour. 141 of the children–82 with and 59 without questionnaire symptoms suggestive of so‐called MBD–had been examined in an extended neuro‐psychiatric study. A discriminant analysis of the questionnaire was performed for these 141 children which demonstrated that a set of 6 questions had a high discriminating capacity detecting for MBD‐syndromes.