Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia

Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a devastating mental illness, and one of a larger class of psychotic disorders defined by the presence of delusions (false beliefs) and/or hallucinations (sensory perceptions without external sensory input). Schizophrenia may also be characterized by disorganized speech and behavior and by negative symptoms such as social, cognitive, and emotional withdrawal. Sensationalized accounts of dangerous, violent, and criminal behavior committed by schizophrenic persons have proliferated through the popular media; and the assumption of schizophrenia-associated crime and violence has contributed to public fear, stigma, social rejection, and even the denial of services and programmatic funding to schizophrenic individuals. In reality, most schizophrenic persons are not criminal or violent. Given this common misperception, a review of the empirical schizophrenia-crime/violence literature along with proposed explanations for the relationship based in psychological, neurobiological, and social theory appears timely (Agnes, 1993).

Childhood-onset schizophrenia is considered as a severe form of psychotic disorder that usually occurs to children during the age of twelve years or younger, it is often chronically and constantly incapacitating. The characterization of childhood schizophrenia has been evolved by time and it is now believed to be a version of dangerous childhood, it is similar to the same disorder that is exhibited among adults and adolescents. In the initial two editions published by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, disorders such as childhood-onset schizophrenia and autistic disorder were never discriminated as different disorders; they were listed in the same category of childhood psychoses (Rachel & Susan, 2002).

When the third edition was published by Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, they listed autism in separate category and in the general heading of schizophrenia the heading of childhood onset schizophrenia was incorporate. While in the fourth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the criteria's set for adult schizophrenia and childhood-onset schizophrenia were said to be synonymous, there was an potential modification exception in the childhood onset schizophrenia that children suffering from such disorder fail to meet the academic and social milestones of everyday life and the performance may continue to decline in functioning. When the text was revised in the fourth edition the criteria of the occupation or social dysfunction in the childhood or adult onset schizophrenia can also prevail because of failure in achieving the level expected because of academic, interpersonal and even occupation accomplishments (APA, 1994a).

In childhood onset schizophrenia, it gradually emerges among children it is usually precedes by development in disturbance for instance development of language or speech and lags in motor. These problems arise because of association with additional evident abnormalities of the brain. The criteria of diagnosis are similar for the adults as well except the symptoms usually appear at the twelve years of age, instead of early twenties or late teen (APA, 1994b).

The student falls under definition of Connecticut of schizophrenia which is also a part of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Schizophrenia is an exhibition of a condition in which one or more of these characteristics ...