Childhood onset schizophrenia and early onset schizophrenia spectrum disorders

Abstract

The clinical severity, impact on development, and poor prognosis of childhood onset schizophrenia may represent a more homogeneous group. Positive symptoms in children are necessary for the diagnosis and hallucinations are more often multimodal. In healthy children and children with a variety of other psychiatric illnesses, hallucinations are not uncommon and diagnosis should not be based on these alone. Childhood onset schizophrenia is an extraordinarily rare illness that is poorly understood but seems continuous with the adult onset disorder. Once a diagnosis is affirmed, aggressive medication treatment combined with family education and individual counseling may defer further deterioration.

Keywords: Childhood onset schizophrenia; Childhood psychosis; Schizophrenia.

Figure 1

Progression of Cortical Gray Matter (GM) Loss in Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia (COS) (n = 70, 162 scans) Relative to Age-, Sex-, and Scan Interval–Matched Healthy Controls (n = 72, 168 Scans) From Adolescence to Young Adulthood (age 12–24 years). [48, 49] Progression of Cortical Gray Matter (GM) Loss in Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia (COS) (n = 70, 162 scans) Relative to Age-, Sex-, and Scan Interval–Matched Healthy Controls (n = 72, 168 Scans) From Adolescence to Young Adulthood (age 12–24 years). Analyses were done using mixed model regression statistics and covaried from mean cortical thickness. Side bar shows t statistic with threshold to control for multiple comparisons using the false discovery rate procedure with q = 0.05. Differences are from mixed model regression with age centered at approximate 3-year intervals for middle 80% of the age range, and colors represent areas of statistically significant thinning in COS.81 [43].