title: [Psychiatry of minimal, early-childhood brain damage].
abstract: Early psychoorganic syndrome in the child is the result of a diffuse cerebral lesion which usually occurs in pregnancy, during delivery or immediately post partum. In the majority of cases the symptoms are biological, normally of a neurologic character, and serve to underpin the diagnosis. They mainly comprise psychomotor disturbances, linguistic disorders and malregulation of central nervous functions. From the psychic viewpoint both intellectual and emotional disturbances are observable. Intellectually the disorders are chiefly of attention, perception and concentration, and in most cases lead to seriously impaired school performance. They are accompanied by an ideation which is frequently retarded and exhibits a tendency to perseveration. The psychoorganic child's affectivity is marked by pathologic lability, increased irritability and imperfect control of impulse and emotion. Secondary infantilism is nearly always observable. In very many cases reactive, and notably neurotic, disorders are superimposed on the psychoorganic substratum. There are thus a wide variety of clinical pictures. A broad spectrum of therapeutic resources is available, covering education, drugs and psychotherapy of superimposed reactive disorders.
mesh_terms: D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000209:etiology; D001288:Attention; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000150:complications*; D002648:Child; D002665:Child Psychiatry; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000209:etiology; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000209:etiology; D013997:Time Factors
vernacular_title: Psychiatrie der minimalen fruehkindlichen hirnschaedigung