Original scientific paper
The Prevalence of Minor Physical Anomalies in Mentally Retarded Children
Z. Ulovec
I. Škrinjarić
Z. Šošić
L. Szirovicza
J. Jukić
Abstract
The prevalence of minor physical anomalies was examined in a sample of 109 children
with idiopathic mental retardation (65 boys and 44 girls). Control group consisted
of 246 healthy schoolchildren (123 boys and 123 girls) aged 8 to 12 years. A comparison
was made between number of found minor anomalies per child (W1) and their Waldrop
weight scores (W2) in healthy and mentally retarded (MR) children. The MR children
were found to have a higher number of minor anomalies per child. In their group predominated
those with four or more anomalies (56.9%), whereas among healthy children
only 7.7% had four anomalies or more. In contrast to the high weighted score value (W2)
of five or greater in 36.7% of MR children, it was absent in all control group subjects.
There were highly significant differences between the MR and healthy children in the
average value of the number of minor anomalies per child (W1) and in the average
weighted score (W2). The average number of minor anomalies per child (W1) in MR and
well children was 3.65 and 1.7, respectively. In MR children the average weighted score
(W2) was 3.82, being 1.46 in healthy children. Our results suggest that common etiological
factors, which had led to a physical and mental disorder, were active early in the development
of MR children. The finding of high incidence of multiple minor anomalies in
MR children indicates that genetic factors may play an important role in the etiology of
the underlying disorder in the child group studied.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
28252
URI
Publication date:
17.6.2002.
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