The Munchen Functional Developmental Diagnosis(in German, Munchen Funktionelle Entwicklungsdiagnostik, MFED), composed of seven items such as gross motor(G.M), fine motor(F.M) perceptual development(Per), expressive language(E.L), receptive language(R.L), social development(Soc.) and independency(Ind). has been used to detect early evidence of some common disabilities of infants and younger children in Korea. In1987, we already performed a preliminary study on 2, 3 year-old normal Korean children using MFED, which revealed that normal Korea children showed significantly earlier divelopmental age than the standard MFED norm in G.M.(4.86⁑3.79 months, mean⁑S,D,.p<0.01) and Ind.(0.97⁑4.11 months) items whereas slower in Per.(1.62⁑3.78 months). The other items showed no significant difference form those of German children¹⁾. The purpose of this study was to determine whether there were typical patterns on MFED in 2, 3 year old children with such common disabilities as cerebral palsy(CP), mental retardation(MR), language problem(LP), and seizure disorders(SD).

When compared to the normal Korea children, CP showed delayed milestones in all items(P<0.01), especially in G.M.(11.81⁑4.03 months). MR also showed delayed milestones in all items(P<0.01) with mostly delayed among the disabilities(P<0.05), especially in E.L.(14.41⁑4.64 months), In G.M. item MR.(12.13⁑4.25 months) seemed more slower in developmental age than CP.(11.81⁑4.03 months) but it was not statistically significant, which might be due to known faster development ages in G.M. of Korean normal children and because relatively milder degree of CP subjects were included in this study. LP showed delayed milestones in all items(P<0.01) either, especially more in E.L.(14.07⁑4.32 months) than in R.L.(10.95⁑4.32 months, P<0.05), Finally SD showed significant delay(P<0.05) only in G.M.(4.80⁑3.43 months), R.L.(0.45⁑3.90), Soc.(2.08⁑4.15 months) and in Ind.(2.08⁑4.09 months), while in other areas it had no significant delayed milestones.

These results suggest that MFED reveal relatively typical patterns on some specific diseases and/or disabilities in younger children and can be safely used as a screening test for early detection of those in Korea.