Minor physical anomalies in normal, neurotic, learning disabled, and severely disturbed children

A high incidence of minor physical anomalies in a childhood schizophrenic population has been previously reported by Goldfarb. In the present study, 108 boys from four different clinical populations were examined, utilizing a standardized anomaly scoring system for which a high interrater reliability was obtained. The patient populations were: general pediatric ward patients (n = 31), psychoneurotic outpatients at a university child guidance clinic (n = 26), learning diabled children (n = 23), and autistic, borderline, and atypical children (n = 28) from two residential treatment centers. Both the learning disabled and residential treatment populations had higher mean anomaly scores than did the first two groups, but did not differ significantly from each other. There was a trend for patients with multiple anomalies to have had more frequent history of prenatal insults or paternal psychopathology. These results indicate that the development of these minor anatomical anomalies which are formed in the first three months of fetal development may parallel early developmental deviation of the central nervous system. The finding of high anomalies in the residential treatment groups supports the idea that some of these patients share a common etiology with the other early developmental deviations, such as speech delay or mental retardation, for which high anomaly scores have also been reported.