Learning disorders and sex chromosome aberrations

No sex chromosome aberrations were detected in a prospective study of twenty adult dyslexic men. A retrospective study of eighty-nine subjects with known sex chromosome aberrations revealed twenty of them to be mentally-retarded. Among the sixty-nine subjects of normal intelligence, learning, speech and attention disorders were frequent. Children with 47,XYY, 47,XXY, and 47,XXX karyotypes appeared particularly prone to experience delays in speech development as well as later academic underachievement in language-related subjects. In contrast, speech development was normal in all of the girls with Turner's syndrome and later academic difficulties were usually confined to mathematics or science. Hyperactivity was noted with considerable frequency among 47,XYY and Turner's syndrome subjects, but not among subjects with a 47,XXX or 47,XXY karyotype.