Recently, the early diagnosis and treatment has been emphasized in the management of the cerebral palsy. In Korea, however, the diagnosis has been delayed by many factors. The purpose of this study was to determine these factors. The subjects were 218 cerebral palsied ranged in age between 3 months and 11 years, who visited our department from August of 1985 to August of 1987.

The results were as follows:

1) In 64.2% of the patients, the motor dysfunction was detected by the parents. And, in 58.7% the motor deficit was found within 6 months, in most of the patients(91.8%) it was found within 12 months. The higher educational status of the parents was, the earlier the motor dysfunction could be found.

2) Only 61.8% of the parents visited the medical clinics or hospitals because of the motor deficit. The rest used tranditional methods, such as chinese herb medicine and acupuncture, which was significantly correlative with lower educational status and lack of medical insurance of the parents.

3) The opinions of 62.3% of the physicians who examined the patients for the first time were inappropriate; 25.0%could not find any abnormality, 29.9% recommended to wait for 12 months, and 7.4% of them believed the cerebral palsy as intractable disease.

4) Most of the parents(91.8%) wanted to treat their children successfully as possible, but 46.7% of them had inappropriate ideas about the treatment.