Increased morphological variants in children with learning disabilities.
Late-forming body signs point to later prenatal events in learning disabilities, so widen your assessment lens beyond early-brain narratives.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Doctors looked at small body signs called morphological variants. These are tiny differences like low-set ears or extra creases.
They checked a group of children with learning disabilities. The goal was to see when in pregnancy these signs formed.
What they found
Most variants were the "late" kind, meaning they showed up after the first three months of pregnancy.
This hints that trouble happened later in prenatal growth, not at the very start.
How this fits with other research
Ozgen et al. (2011) counted 48 such features in kids with autism and also found more than in typical peers. Both papers link outside looks to brain differences.
Lifshitz et al. (2014) went further, showing that more dysmorphic signs predict lower language and motor scores in preschoolers with ASD. They turned the simple count into a severity scale.
Willems et al. (2016) used math clustering, not body signs, to split reading-disabled kids into four clear cognitive groups. That 2016 study is a direct successor: it answers the same "one-size-does-not-fit-all" call made here in 1982.
Why it matters
If you assess a child with learning problems, a quick head-to-toe scan for late-forming minor anomalies can give you a timeline clue. Pair that with newer tools like cognitive clustering or severity scales to pick the right intervention track instead of using a single "learning disability" label.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add a one-minute dysmorphology scan to your intake checklist and note any late variants.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Previous studies have shown that children with learning disabilities have more morphological variants or anomalies than normal children, suggesting that the morphological and central nervous system effects may be the result of the same prenatal factors. The morphological variants were assumed to have arisen in the first 3 months of prenatal development, which may not be so. We have partitioned variants into those that probably arise early in fetal development ("early" variants) and those that could arise later and could be due to altered growth ("late" variants). There was an increase in both "early" and "late" variants but only that the "late" variants was statistically significant. Although the method of measuring one "early" variant (dermal patterns) was sensitive enough to detect mild disturbances in children with isolated congenital heart disease, such a disturbance was not found in our group of learning-disabled patients. Our findings suggest that the developmental disturbances resulting in morphological variants may act later in prenatal development than was previously believed. This information may be helpful in searching for clues to the etiology of this heterogeneous group of disabilities.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 1982 · doi:10.1007/BF01538325