Estimates of the numbers of people with learning disabilities who also have a co-morbid psychiatric disorder vary considerably between studies, from 14 to 39%. This review set out to look at the knowledge, attitudes and training of professionals supporting people with both learning disability and psychoatric disorder, termed in this study, dual diagnosis. The authors [read the full story…]
Recent genetic studies have shown there may be shared genetics in some neuropsychiatric disorders. The researchers in this Australian study were interested to look at risks of learning disability and other neuropsychiatric outcomes in 3174 children born to mothers with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or unipolar major depression. They compared this risk with a control group [read the full story…]
Mental Health courts were established in the USA in the 1990s, and were designed to help offenders with a mental health diagnosis who might end up in prison to have access to long-term community-based treatment. Mental health courts were piloted in England in 2009 to ensure that a defendant’s mental health or learning disability was [read the full story…]
Previous studies trying to reach an understanding of the rate of co-morbid psychiatric problems in children with autism spectrum disorders have reported significantly varying findings. The authors of this matched control study wanted to look at patterns of co-morbid psychiatric problems in such and their parents compared a group of controls matched for IQ, and [read the full story…]
Williams syndrome is genetic condition caused by gene deletion and is estimated to have a prevalence of 1 in 7,500 to 1 in 20,000 live births. Previous studies, which have relied mainly on the testimony of parents and carers, have suggested that people with Williams syndrome may have a disposition towards anxiety. The authors of [read the full story…]
This paper describes a case study of a young man with Asperger syndrome who set a fire in his home. The authors point out that offences may be committed by people with autistic spectrum disorders because of deficits in social skills, co-morbid mental health problems or abuse of drugs and alcohol. There may also be [read the full story…]
The researchers in this study were interested in looking at the extent to which a diagnosis of learning disability met current diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM) diagnostic criteria. They wanted to know the prevalence of reported autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and the extent to which the assessment of developmental issues was seen [read the full story…]
The authors of this study set out to look at whether trauma treatment had been successfully used with people with learning disabilities and substantially limited verbal capacities. They found no case studies in the literature. The article describes and assesses the applicability of eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) a trauma therapy based on the [read the full story…]
The authors of this study used a cognitive-emotive interview with 19 subjects with learning disabilities and 19 matched subjects without a learning disability. The authors set out to compare how people with and without learning disabilities talked about events, beliefs and emotions in dialogues which covered real-life, specific emotive events and as part of a [read the full story…]
This small scale study set out to carry out an initial exploration of the measurement of therapy expectancy in adults with learning disabilities through the therapy expectation measure (TEAM). The authors combined a top-down theory-driven and bottom-up data-driven process in the initial development phase, where they identified TEAM items and format, followed by correlational analyses [read the full story…]
