Language disorders and learning disabilities in school-refusing adolescents.
OBJECTIVE
We undertook this study to test the hypothesis that school-refusing adolescents hospitalized on an inpatient psychiatric unit have more language and learning disabilities than diagnosis-, age-, and sex-matched psychiatric controls.


METHODS
The Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement-Revised (WJTA-R), the WISC-R, the Adolescent Language Screening Test, the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Revised, and the Test of Language Competence (TLC) were given to a group of well-characterized, primarily depressed school refusers and matched psychiatric controls.


RESULTS
We found that school-refusing adolescents had significantly lower WISC-R verbal intelligence scores, lower Math and Written Language subscale scores on the WJTA-R, and lower scores on the TLC than nonrefusers. School refusers were found to have a significantly higher incidence of both language impairments and learning disabilities than controls.


CONCLUSIONS
We infer that academic and communicative frustration and the adolescent's resulting inability to meet the academic and social demands in the school environment may play a role in the etiology of school refusal.
Naylor
M W
MW
Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, IL 60611.
Staskowski
M
M
Kenney
M C
MC
King
C A
CA
D000293:Adolescent; D000299:Adolescent, Institutionalized / Q000523:psychology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D007859:Learning Disabilities / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D013332:Student Dropouts / Q000523:psychology*