A VIEWPOINT FROM CHILD PSYCHIATRY ABOUT THE DIAGNOSIS OF DYSPHSIA

Dysphasia is a severe and persistant disorder of oral language development. Usually, the effect on language development is said to be "specific", that is, something not traceable to an identifiable clinical cause. Because of the complexity of diagnosing dysphasia, we have felt it necessary first, to make a synthetic compendium of the state of research in the domain based on a review of the literature. In the second part of the article, we will formalize some of our questions concerning the diagnosis and the notion of specificity, born of the confrontation between our clinical experience and the salient points of current research. On the basis of this clinical practice and with the support of the aformentioned research, the authors plead for the necessity of a psychiatric evaluation of all children in whom dysphasia is suspected or diagnosed.