Abstract
Objective. It is difficult to appropriately recognise bipolar affective disorder in children and adolescents due to a different picture of affective disorders in that developmental stage, especially if they are concurrent with deafness. The latter not only makes communicating difficult, but also results in an impaired development of abstract thinking.
Case. A 16-year-old patient with pre-language deafness and bipolar affective disorder is described.
Commentary. Due to the specificity of psychopathological symptoms, as well as difficulty in their naming and classification, mood disorders in deafpatients, and particularly bipolar affective disorder, are diagnosed too seldom or erroneously.