Psychosocial stress and adaptive functioning in children and adolescents suffering from hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia.

In its fully manifest form, hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia (HED) leads to a typical dysmorphia of the face, referred to as "old man" facies. Few studies have been conducted on how children and adolescents deal with and adapt to the effects of this illness. The psychosocial stress and adaptive functioning of such patients was investigated by means of a semistructured interview conducted on a sample of 14 children and adolescents with varying degrees of this disease. The results revealed that adaptive functioning is not only dependent on the severity of symptoms. The child's intellectual potential and personality, how the disease is dealt with within the family, and reactions from the child's environment influence adaptive functioning in different ways.