Behavioural and emotional problems in children with intellectual disability attending special schools in Cape Town, South Africa.
One in three Cape Town special-school pupils with ID show clinical-level behaviour problems—use the short DBC-T to spot boys, severe ID, epilepsy, and non-verbal children fast.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team visited every special school for children with intellectual disability in Cape Town.
Teachers filled out the Developmental Behaviour Checklist (DBC-T) for each pupil.
They noted the child’s level of ID, sex, epilepsy, walking ability, and whether the child could speak.
What they found
About one in three pupils scored in the clinical range for emotional or behavioural problems.
Risk was highest in boys, severe-profound ID, epilepsy, and non-verbal children.
The pattern matched what clinicians see every day, but now South Africa had local numbers.
How this fits with other research
Holden et al. (2006) asked the same question in Norway and found slightly lower rates.
The difference is small and likely comes from using a different checklist, not a real country gap.
Oliver et al. (2002) later showed the DBC-T itself works well in Dutch children, backing the tool used here.
Jackson et al. (2025) trimmed the 94-item DBC-T to 35 items that still catch the same problems, saving teachers time.
Why it matters
If you work with South African learners, expect roughly one third to need extra mental-health support.
Screen new intakes with the short-form DBC-T; it takes five minutes and flags the same high-risk groups—boys, severe ID, epilepsy, non-verbal.
Share the numbers with teachers and funders; local data beats foreign stats when you ask for more behaviour support staff.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
A sample of 355 children with intellectual disability (ID) attending special schools in Cape Town, South Africa, were assessed on the Developmental Behavioural Checklist--Teacher Version (DBC-T). A prevalence rate of 31% for psychopathology was found. Boys manifested more behaviour problems than girls, especially in relation to disruptive, self-absorbed and antisocial behaviours. Children with severe and profound levels of ID showed more behavioural difficulties than those in the mild and moderate categories. Specific behaviour problems were self-absorbed and autistic behaviours in children with profound ID, communication problems and anxiety in those with severe ID and antisocial behaviour in children with mild ID. Epilepsy, but not cerebral palsy was associated with higher total behaviour scores. Ambulant children were more disruptive and antisocial, while non-ambulant children were more anxious. Non-verbal children had higher scores on all of the subscales except for disruptive behaviour.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2001 · doi:10.1046/j.1365-2788.2001.00368.x