Sue Bailey, chair of the Faculty of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said staff would be trained to jointly conduct assessments, which would help to identify problems earlier.
The news follows research that found one in five young offenders had an IQ of less than 70.
Andie Lambe, policy officer at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said young offenders' institutions did not provide adequate care, pointing to a case from the European Court for Human Rights that ruled a young person with an IQ of around 60 should be tried in a specialist tribunal.
She said: "It's been clearly recognised that children with an IQ of less than 70 are not able to properly understand or act in proceedings against them at pre-trial, yet once sentences are passed they are treated the same as other offenders."
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