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Query: UMLS:C0029713 (immaturity)
 4,335 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Four congenitally blind children aged 4-12 years, with severe or moderate mental retardation, were chronobiologically studied. Three of them showed a free-running rhythm of sleep-wake, and the fourth showed an irregular sleep-wake rhythm. To entrain their sleep-wake rhythm to a 24-h rhythm, several trials based on chronotherapy were performed. The free-running rhythms in the three children were considered their own endogenous rhythms, revealed through some disorder in the mechanism synchronizing the endogenous rhythm to the normal 24-h environmental rhythm. The irregular sleep-wake rhythm in the fourth child may have been the result of immaturity or failure of the pacemaker of the circadian rhythm. Because of their severe mental retardation, all the children were lacking in social time cues, which are the most potent "Zeitgebers" for human biological clocks.
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PMID:Four congenitally blind children with circadian sleep-wake rhythm disorder. 358 22

The aim of this paper is to study the psychological and relational aspects in children suffering from specific malformative syndrome and precisely Down s., Sotos s., X-Fragile s. and Williams s. Indeed literature provides much data related to the phenotype, to the organic-biological characteristics, but little or nothing is known about the affective structure, the episodes and to the particular dynamics that emerge in he relation between the parents and the malformed child. A protocol was applied to our sample group (16 subjects). This protocol includes laboratory and instrumental tests (chromosome test, neurometabolic screening, EEG, CT or cranial MRI, cardiac and abdominal ultrasonography, ear and eye test) aspects. This evaluation is carried out through the proposal of standardized situations (psychometric tests) and a use of a freer observational setting. This permits us to understand how the child perceives himself the awareness and the image he has of himself and how able he is to integrate his illness experiences and his way of relating with the environment. The data of our observations are thus used to compile a grill for the structural diagnosis of the personality. Besides, this evaluation is flanked by the observation of the family in order to explore the psychological image that parents have of their child, his character, his good points, his bad points, his similarities, how he relates to them, any educational problems and the emotional reaction that the communication of the diagnosis has raised in them. The videotaped observations are subsequently evaluated through the application of a grill for the study of the mother-child relationship. The results obtained from the psychological research underline a reasonable heterogeneity both of the intellectual level and of the metapsychological profile. Twelve subjects were mentally retarded (5 with mild mental retardation, 7 with moderate mental retardation); the remaining 4 had a normal cognitive development (3 with Sotos s., 1 with Williams s.). Psychological disturbances are present and thus divided: light disturbances (affective immaturity, neurotic-depressive organisation) in 11 subjects. Average disturbances (dysharmonious structure, and borderline personality) in 4 subjects; severe disturbances (psychosis) in 1 subject. Besides, above all in the group of subjects with X-Fragile s. and Down s., the tendency to assume behaviour of a regressive type, also postural, emerges. Among the 4 groups it is frequent to resort to defence mechanisms of hypomaniac type, accompanied by the denial of the patient's "sick parts". Another common characteristic concerns the quality of imaginary life which is shown to be repetitive and stereotype in content. Indeed these children's play activity characterized by a limited capacity of symbolization. Instead, when the symbolic process is more developed, contents concerning a deteriorated and destructive image of the Self emerges. Through the evaluation of family dynamics what is more noticeable is that the parent-malformed child interaction appears to be quite nonstimulating and noninvolving or incoherent, lacking in harmony and empathy towards the child's inner world. Indeed we can notice a lack of both verbal and extraverbal exchange of communication and brief interactive sequences which do not usually take into account the child's proposals and an affective tonality of depressive and nonaffective type. Therefore it may be concluded a certain smoothness in the clinical expression of the syndromes considered, both as far as the cognitive deficit entity and the psychic problems are concerned. Referring to the interactive dynamics between parents and children with dismorphic syndrom it seems that the child's pathology becomes the organizational summit of the above-mentioned relational dynamics among most of the patients examined...
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PMID:[Cognitive and affective characteristics of children with malformation syndrome]. 856 38

We report on the clinical observation of a girl patient with few signs of cri-du-chat syndrome. The chromosomal analysis in lymphocyte culture showed 46,XX,del(5)(p15.3) in 38% of cells. Psychological tests revealed motor, perceptive and visual-spatial problems, as well as immaturity and emotional dependence. The phoniatric evaluation showed poor vocabulary, difficulty with repeating words or numbers in sequence, and better receptive than expressive language. The spectrographic measurements showed disturbance of fundamental frequency (F0) in vocal pronunciation. The anatomic findings of the laryngoscopic evaluation were normal, indicating that the voice and speech problems were functional disorders. The present case revealed moderate clinical signs and vocal disturbance associated with a low percentage of 5p- cells and the breakpoint at 5p15.3. The short terminal deletion with a possible loss of the critical region for cat-like cry and the presence of a normal cell line, explain the cry not so typical at birth (weak but not high-pitched), the intermediate values of F0, and the moderate mental retardation. This case is compared with other mosaic 5p- patients reported in the literature.
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PMID:Mosaic cri-du-chat syndrome in a girl with a mild phenotype. 1902 89