Inside Schizophrenia

WHAT IT IS, WHAT CAUSES SCHIZOPHRENIA, AND HOW IT'S TREATED

What is Schizophrenia? What are the Symptoms of Schizophrenia? What Causes It? How is It Treated? When Someone Has Schizophrenia Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia How Can Other People Help? What is the Outlook? The Center for Mental Health Services

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Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia

A child's stage of development must be taken into account when considering a diagnosis of mental illness. Behaviors that are normal at one age, may not be at another. Rarely, a normal young child may report strange experiences. such as hearing voices. that would be considered abnormal at a later age. Clinicians look for a more persistent pattern of such behaviors. Parents may have reason for concern if a child of 7 years or older often hears voices saying derogatory things about him or her, or voices conversing with one another, talks to himself or herself, stares at scary things. snakes, spiders, shadows. that aren't really there, and shows no interest in friendships. Such behaviors could be signs of schizophrenia.

Fortunately, schizophrenia is rare in children. The average age of onset is 18 in men and 25 in women. Ranking among the top 10 causes of disability in developed countries worldwide, schizophrenia, at any age, exacts a heavy toll on patients and their families. Children with schizophrenia experience difficulty in managing everyday life. They share with their adult counterparts hallucinations, delusions, social withdrawal, flattened emotions, increased risk of suicide and loss of social and personal care skills. They may also share some symptoms with. and be mistaken for. children who suffer from autism or other pervasive developmental disabilities, which affect about 1 in 500 children. Although they tend to be harder to treat and have a worse prognosis than adult-onset schizophrenia patients, researchers are finding that many children with schizophrenia can be helped by the new generation of anti-psychotic medications.

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Symptoms and Diagnosis

While schizophrenia sometimes begins as an acute psychotic episode in young adults, it emerges gradually in children, often preceded by developmental disturbances, such as lags in motor and speech/language development. Such problems tend to be associated with more pronounced brain abnormalities. The diagnostic criteria are the same as for adults, except that symptoms appear prior to age 12, instead of in the late teens or early 20s. Children with schizophrenia often see or hear things that don't really exist, and harbor paranoid and bizarre beliefs. For example, they may think people are plotting against them or can read their minds. Other symptoms of the disorder include problems paying attention, impaired memory and reasoning, speech impairments, inappropriate, or flattened, expression of emotion, poor social skills, and depressed mood. Such children may laugh at a sad event, make poor eye contact, and show little body language or facial expression.

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Misdiagnosis of schizophrenia in children is all too common. It is distinguished from autism by the persistence of hallucinations and delusions for at least 6 months, and a later age of onset. 7 years or older. Autism is usually diagnosed by age 3. Schizophrenia is also distinguished from a type of brief psychosis sometimes seen in affective, personality and dissociative disorders in children. Adolescents with bipolar disorder sometimes have acute onset of manic episodes that may be mistaken for schizophrenia. Children who have been victims of abuse may sometimes claim to hear voices of. or see visions of. the abuser. Symptoms characteristically pervade the child's life, and are not limited to just certain situations, such as at school. If children show any interest in friendships, even if they fail at maintaining them, it's unlikely that they have schizophrenia.

 

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It is not the intention of the Inside Schizophrenia website to provide specific medical advice, but rather to provide users with information to better understand their mental health and diagnosed disorders. Specific medical advice will not be provided, and we urge you to consult with a qualified mental health or health care provider for diagnosis and for answers to your personal questions.