[ mobile: a new addiction upon adolescents]

This survey was conducted to investigate mobile phone used and dependence in Tunisian high school students. Questionnaires were anonymously distributed to 120 adolescents looking for the modalities of use of mobiles. SMS dependency was assessed with the French version of the Igarashi scale. The two most used means for communication were SMS and missing calls. 83.2% of the sample sent more than 6 missing perception of excessive use in 31. Seven percent of cases, emotional reaction in 33.4% of cases and exclusive relationship maintenance thanks to mobile in 18% of cases. This study demonstrated a new addiction to mobile phone among Tunisian high school students

[Adaption of a soft signs scale to children with autism spectrum disorders]

Neurological soft signs [NSS] are endophenotypic markers of schizophrenia, and their high prevalence in pervasive developmental disorders [PDD] support the existence of the spectrum of psychoses. These NSS were evaluated by standardized scales which were not adapted to children with PDD. This study aimed to propose an adaptation for children of a scale of NSS already used in adults. 21 children with PDD [II with autistic disorder, 10 with PDD not otherwise specified] aged 6-12 years and 21 controls matched on age. sex, and cognitive level were included. Evaluating tools were NSS scale of Krebs et al. adapted after a pilot-study with the accordance of its author; the Progressive Matrices of Raven for intellectual level, and ADI-R to confirm diagnosis. Patients were significantly more impaired on total score [p=0, 001], motor coordination [p=0, 08]. motor integration [p=0, 000]. and sensory integration [p=0, 001]. There were no difference between patients and controls on abnormal movements and quality of lateralization. This adaptation of Krebs et al. scale seems to be a good tool for evaluating NSS in children, especially in those with PDD.A further validation study. including a larger sample is necessary

[Memory impairments during child and adolescent depression]

This study aimed to evaluate basic performances on verbal memory in treatment-naive children and adolescents with depression and in healthy control subjects. 34 children and adolescents aged 6-16 years, suffering from a first major depressive disorder [DSM IV] and 34 controls matched on sex, age and cognitive ability were evaluated. Psychiatric diagnosis was assessed with the K-SADS-PL. The Child Depression Rating Scale [CDRS] was used to assess the severity of depression. Progressive matrices of Raven were used to evaluate intelligence. Tow different cognitive tasks were administered to assess semantic and working memory: digit span test, and semantic and phonemic verbal fluency. A significant effect of diagnosis was found for digit span: patients showed lower performance on forward [p=0, 015] and backward [p=0, 002] digits. No difference was found between patients and controls on verbal fluency. The young age of the sample and the first depressive episode criteria may explain the absence of severe impairment of this type of semantic and working memory. These results support the hypothesis that memory deficits in depressive disorders are partly the result of poor encoding caused by a deficit in attention

[ diagnosis of temporal epilepsy in child psychiatry: a report of 7 cases]

This paper attempts to describe the features of temporal epilepsy in patients firstly considered as having psychiatric disorders. The cases of seven patients followed between 2005 arc 2008 at the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department of Ran Hospital, aged II to 15 years are treated. All the patients showed complex partial seizures, and some of them showed secondarily generalized tonic-clonic seizures. Seizures were predominantly made of psychic symptoms [delusion fear, aggressiveness] hot also associated sensory, motor and vegetative features, In 5 cases, epilepsy was idiopathic, and symptomatic of brain anomaly in 2 cases, Careful attention must be paid to paroxystic symptoma in children