Recognition of face identity and emotion in expressive specific language impairment.

Objective: To study face and emotion recognition in children with mostly expressive specific language impairment (SLI-E).

Subjects And Methods: A test movie to study perception and recognition of faces and mimic-gestural expression was applied to 24 children diagnosed as suffering from SLI-E and an age-matched control group of normally developing children.

Results: Compared to a normal control group, the SLI-E children scored significantly worse in both the face and expression recognition tasks with a preponderant effect on emotion recognition.

[Max Isserlin--founder of child psychiatry in Munich].

The early days of child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy at the beginning of the 20th century were governed by the schools of thought of that era and by personalities, who as physicians and researchers, recognized that disorders of mental development constituted a separate field. Among them was Max Isserlin, who established the first hospital for child psychiatry in Munich, the Heckscher Clinic, in 1929. Isserlin's landmark discoveries in psychiatry, above all those pertaining to aphasias, are still of topical interest today.

[Standards for expert assessment of credibility].

Expert judgment of the credibility of children's statements in cases of abuse is frequently requested of specialists in psychology and child and adolescent psychiatry, the latter being mandatory if psychopathology is present in the child. Assessment and judgment must meet standards of quality. Important innovations include a systematic procedure, avoidance of suggestive techniques for exploration and the application of a so-called criteria-based analysis of the child's statement.