Adolescents With Learning Disability and Psychiatric Illness: two Case Reports

The authors describe 2 case reports of adolescents with learning disability who developed acute psychiatric illnesses (including suicidality). They highlight the difficulties inherent in formulating such individuals’ problems & illustrate the difficulties in diagnosis, the complexity of therapeutic interventions available, & the particular need for consideration of the impact upon the young person & their family of diagnosing a psychiatric illness in addition to the learning disability. (36 refs)