Symptoms of Schizophrenia In Children
The symptoms of schizophrenia are rarely observed in children, but statistics show that 1 in 40,000 children are diagnosed with this disorder. Comparatively, 1 in 100 adults ages 18-35 are diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia or a schizophrenia subtype. When found in children, schizophrenia shares some similar characteristics with autism and developmental disabilities (which affect 1 in 500 children). Unique to schizophrenia, however, are the psychotic hallucinations and delusions that characterize the disorder. Many children also exhibit muted emotions, social withdrawal, lack of personal hygiene care and heightened sensitivity.
If a child is seeing or hearing things that don’t exist, then he or she may be exhibiting early symptoms of schizophrenia. Children may exhibit gradual changes, such as becoming shyer or withdrawn or they may have an acute onset marked by fearful delusions that people can read their minds or are plotting against them. Affected children will often laugh at sad events, show little body language and have muted facial expressions. Other symptoms of mental illness include speech impairment, poor memory, difficulty paying attention and hallucinations.
Far too often, children are misdiagnosed with schizophrenia. Hallucinations and delusions are schizophrenia symptoms that distinguish it from something like autism. These hallucinations and delusions are not one-time events, but rather, they persist for at least six months. Usually a child begins to show symptoms at age 7, whereas an autistic child is more commonly diagnosed by age 3. Sometimes the manic fits of acute schizophrenia are mistaken for a personality disorder, bipolar disorder or dissociative disorder. Most children with this brain disorder show no interest in making or maintaining friendships, which also marks their condition.
Symptoms of schizophrenia often run down familial lines, although the exact genetic link and what causes schizophrenia is yet to be determined. A parent with thought disorders has a 10-15% chance of passing it down to their kids. Once a child is diagnosed, there is a 7-8% chance that his or her siblings will also be diagnosed with the disorder. Mental health professionals have found many of the same distinctive brain features in people living with schizophrenia. For instance, researchers found that fluid-filled cavities in the brain center begin expanding and brain tissue volume shrinks between ages 14 and 18 for early onset patients. Compared to other children, these subjects lost four times as much gray matter, neurons and dendrites in their frontal lobes, affecting attention, perception, organizing, planning and other executive functions.
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