List of categories

No specific disorder of psychological development

Disorders of psychological development

Specific developmental disorders of speech and language

1. F80.0 Specific speech articulation disorder

2. F80.1 Expressive language disorder

3. F80.2 Receptive language disorder

4. F80.3 Acquired aphasia with epilepsy [Landau-Kleffner syndrome]

5. F80.8 Other developmental disorders of speech and language

6. F80.9 Developmental disorder of speech and language, unspecified

Specific developmental disorders of scholastic skills

1. F81.0 Specific reading disorder

2. F81.1 Specific spelling disorder

3. F81.2 Specific disorder of arithmetical skills

4. F81.3 Mixed disorder of scholastic skills

5. F81.8 Other developmental disorders of scholastic skills

6. F81.9 Developmental disorder of scholastic skills, unspecified

F82 Specific developmental disorder of motor function

F83 Mixed specific developmental disorders

F88 Other disorders of psychological development

F89 Unspecified disorder of psychological development

Introduction

The disorders included in F80–F83 and F88–F89 have the following features in common:

1. (a) an onset that is invariably during infancy or childhood;

2. (b) an impairment or delay in the development of functions that are strongly related to biological maturation of the central nervous system; and

3. (c) a steady course that does not involve the remissions and relapses that tend to be characteristic of many mental disorders.

In most cases, the functions affected include language, visuo-spatial skills and/or motor coordination. It is characteristic for the impairments to lessen progressively as children grow older (although milder deficits often remain in adult life). Usually, the history is of a delay or impairment that has been present from as early as it could be reliably detected, with no prior period of normal development. Most of these conditions are several times more common in boys than in girls.