Oligophrenic Children with Marked Deficiency of the Frontal Systems

Abstract

Quite different from the forms of oligophrenia which we have so far described is another form in which a diffuse lesion of the cerebral cortex is combined with a disturbance of the frontal systems. Against the background of maldevelopment of the cognitive functions these cases show an obvious and gross disturbance of the whole personality development, alterations in the system of desires and motives, combined with a considerable maldevelopment of the emotional-volitional function. The children with this defect whom we investigated usually displayed a typical maldevelopment of their motor activity. The structure of the defect in this particular form of oligophrenia was similar to the disturbances of the complex forms of human behavior and activity which have been described in lesions of the frontal divisions of the cerebral cortex in adult patients.

Besides describing the developmental history, of oligophrenlc children receiving their education at a special school, in this chapter we also present case reports of children under observation in the children’s department of the N.N. Burdenko Institute of Neurosurgery and in the children’s department of the Kashchenko Hospital, which accounts for slight differences in the character of presentation.