[Cognitive characteristics of children and adolescents with social behavior disorders--an overview]

This paper first reviews studies that deal with intelligence structure and developmental disorders among children and adolescents with conducts disorders. Their intelligence quotients frequently fall in the dull normal range, they do worst on the Vocabulary, Information and Arithmetic subtests of the WISC or WAIS. Particularly aggressive adolescents and chronic offenders often suffer from developmental disorders, especially reading retardation, language/speech and attention deficit disorders. Cognitive deficits of children often interact with bad social, especially familial conditions in the development of conduct disorders; in the second part of this paper the nature of this interaction is discussed in detail.