Our chapter on childhood onset schizophrenia (COS) was very interesting to me. I find schizophrenia interesting because of how different their brain works. Personally, I have a hard time understanding it in adults so I can’t even imagine how difficult it would be for a child to go through. I got to thinking about other similar disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorder(ASD) and if there was a comorbidity of COS with any other disorder or even a similarity between COS and any other disorder.
I found an article on comparing the neuroimaging of schizophrenia and ASD. In children, ASD is more common with 1 in 88 children however COS is much less common with 1 in 10,000-30,000 children being diagnosed. This article compared children who were on the more severe end of ASD. The article found that the temporoparietal junction that is the central to integration of social information and empathy were similar. I thought it was interesting as well that both COS and ASD have similar thinning in that region. In addition, the orbital frontal cortex is also similar in it’s abnormal thickness compared to the norm. Lastly, there was a reduced amount of white matter in the corpus callosum in both COS and ASD with up to a 15% deficit for both. After reading the article I thought it was interesting that there were so many similarities between the two. I personally wouldn’t have put the two together.
Baribeau, D. A., & Anagnostou, E. (2013). A Comparison of Neuroimaging Findings in Childhood Onset Schizophrenia and Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Review of the Literature. Frontiers in Psychiatry Front. Psychiatry, 4. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2013.00175
Child onset schizophrenia is one of the more complicated disorders we have learned about. It makes plenty of sense to me that COS would not be common. Adult schizophrenia is so rare. I have never considered comorbidity with ASD. I would think that would make both disorders very difficult to diagnose due to the brain patterns.
Hi Alex, I completely agree. It was very surprising that so many cranial similarities existed between the two. I wonder what the comorbidity between the two are.
I agree that it would be really hard to have both COS and ASD at the same time. I think it is interesting that temporoparietal junction was similar in both cases. I think that looking at empathy is an interesting topic since it's hard to imagine a person lacking empathy.
I enjoyed your post! It was interesting to learn the similarities in brain structure between COS and ASD children. I would be interested to learn how those brain structural similarities looked or played out in daily life (i.e. behavior, communication). Like you and Lauren said, it is difficult to fully understand and picture schizophrenia, but your post added more depth to it for me. Overall, this was a great post!
Great post! I never would've thought about ASD and COS being associated with each other or act in similar regions of the brain. I found it interesting how both of these disorders had a thicker frontal cortex. Specifically, I found it interesting since this is a region for higher processing. It makes sense that it would be different from the norm since both of these disorders consist of abnormal behavior that in turns affects the overall shape of certain parts of the brain. This is what amazes me, and makes me wonder how other parts of the brain do people with schizophrenia experience a change in and how it affects their overall behavior.
Really good post! Its cool that they found a possible biological reason that could be affecting these individuals. I wonder if they could do some testing and stimulate that area of the brain in someone with severe cos to see if that helped their symptoms (voices/behaviors). I think its great that they have found a possible link to these disorders so that now they can possibly come up with better cures for these disorders.
Hi Leeann. I completely agree with you, childhood onset schizophrenia is hard to wrap my brain around. It makes sense that COS is not very common in children, because it is only around 1% likelihood in the general adult population. I wonder if both COS and Schizophrenia have the same over abundance of dopamine in the brain? I have also never thought about the similarities between ASD and COS. Before today, I would never have thought there were any.
Based on the text, childhood onset schizophrenia seems complicated. From my understanding, it is not very simple to diagnose in general, but particularly in children. After reading the text I wanted to know if there are any developmental patterns in children diagnosed with childhood onset schizophrenia? Specifically, do symptoms occur in a predictable pattern or does it vary greatly in each individual case?
In a peer-reviewed article, I found that this topic is not heavily researched and researchers cannot draw any real conclusions due to the lack of research. This research, however, did give some indication of developmental patterns in children with childhood onset schizophrenia. What I found very interesting about this study is some of the children in the sample were diagnosed in very early childhood with autism (based on DSM-III). Of the participants who initially were diagnosed with autism, it was considered severe until the time of their schizophrenia onset. At this time, the autism was nearly overshadowed by the schizophrenic symptoms. The participants who lacked criterion to be diagnosed with autism along with schizophrenia did not experience as severe symptoms through development. Some of these severe patterns in development included motor functioning delays, an increasing difficulty with language, and failure to meet developmental benchmarks. Participants diagnosed with autism first and then schizophrenia continued to struggle in developmental areas with age.
This study was very complex. It did not answer my question directly, but it did show that comorbidity with autism makes the pattern of symptoms less obvious unless compared to children without autism. I find it interesting that autism and schizophrenia worked together within these children to harshly hinder their development. This study does show, however, that childhood onset schizophrenia may not be obvious because the symptoms may not be severe or in a pattern. This was a very interesting study.
Watkins, J. M., Asarnow, R. F., & Tanguay, P. E. (1988). Symptom development in childhood onset schizophrenia. Journal Of Child Psychology And Psychiatry, And Allied Disciplines, 29(6), 865-878.
That study seems really interesting! I am surprised that the onset schizophrenia overshadowed the severe autism. That is something that I wouldn't have expected. Did the autistic symptoms disappear with the onset schizophrenia? Or were the schizophrenic symptoms just that much more prominent?
Hi Alex, your post was very interesting! I was surprised at how hard COS is to diagnose. I wonder how many children are missing out on a diagnosis or are only diagnosed with ASD and not receiving treatment. I also wonder if the pharmaceutical treatment for adults could be given to children with COS?
This post was very interesting. I like how you looked at early signs or patterns of symptoms because that could really aid in the diagnosis/treatment/outcome of schizophrenia. The developmental patterns depicted in the study seem to be symptoms that could suggest many different things (IDD, ASD, etc.), so I could see how it would be very difficult to diagnose a child with schizophrenia. On the other hand, I wonder if the lack of research could be somewhat due to how rare schizophrenia is, making it seem like a research topic that could be put on the back-burner or deemed as less important. Either way, this study shows how necessary further research is in the area of childhood schizophrenia. This was a great post!
Good job on your post. I feel like I have read before about comorbidity of COS and autism, but I was shocked that autism would "overshadow" earlier symptoms of COS. I know you mentioned it was a difficult to understand, but I am interested to see when this overshadowing decays! Hopefully future studies can clear it up.
Alex-Marie, Nice post, it is difficult for us to see that COS is a difficult disorder to understand. That is maybe why autism spectrum disorder could cover up this disorder. As mentioned below, I wish more research could be conducted to clear this all out! Nice Work!
This actually makes sense in context of how rare COS (1 in ~40,000 is the estimate I've seen) is. In that context, any residual "weirdness" caused by psychosis or hallucinations might be easily explained by autism, something more common and easier to understand. this might be especially true in contexts where autism itself isn't well-understood either.
Hey Alex-Marie! Great blog post. I remember briefly discussing autism in our COS in-class discussion today, so I found your blog post interesting. Your post mentioned that sometimes schizophrenia in children might go unnoticed because of the lack of consistent symptoms, and that the abnormal behaviors might be blamed on autism. This makes sense considering autism in children is more common than schizophrenia. In all honesty, if I was a parent, it would be a lot easier for me to wrap my head around having an autistic child versus having a schizophrenic child. The further research advances on COS, the easier it should be for doctors to distinguish between autism and schizophrenia. This should help those children who are living with COS in that early detection should benefit their treatment process.
I have read in many books over the years that schizophrenia, as a whole is an extremely genetic disorder. While reading the book, it also talked about how it was neurobiological disorder. I was curious to know, which patterns in the genes can effect childhood onset schizophrenia (COS).
The article that I found looked at childhood onset schizophrenia and copy number variants (CNVs). They examined the CNVs in the children, chose 46 CNVs to compare with their sibling controls, and to look at rates of high risk CNVs. There were 126 COS patients and 117 siblings that participated. The researchers looked at single nucleotide polymorphisms genotyping. After they examined the DNA, the researchers found that COS carried more disease-related CNVs than patients with adult onset schizophrenia (AOS). I found this not surprising because, one would think that that there would be more CNVs in COS than AOS since the age of onset is earlier. They found many of the same deletions in the genes across the patients with COS. They found one specific gene though that had been deleted in 11% of the sample, which was higher than they were expecting. I found this study extremely interesting, even thought it was highly biology based, it shows that there is a strong genetic influence on COS.
Ahn, K., Gotay, N., Andersen, T. M., Anvari, A. A., Gochman, P., Lee, Y., & ... Rapoport, J. L. (2014). High rate of disease-related copy number variations in childhood onset schizophrenia. Molecular Psychiatry, 19(5), 568-572. doi:10.1038/mp.2013.59
I think it is good to see the biological side of COS. Schizophrenia is known to be a genetic disorder, as you mentioned above, so comparing COS to AOS can give some perspective. I wonder if the CNVs have anything to do with age of onset or if, rather, age of onset impacts the CNVs. I find it crazy that a common factor among the participants was a deleted gene. I'm sure they were shocked that over 10% of the sample shared this genetic "mutation" (for lack of a better term). I would be interested to know more about that gene and how it plays a role in COS since it is not prevalent in the entire sample.
Most of the articles I'm seeing on this concern biological bases for COS, especially gray matter and cortical layering. However, genetic influence makes sense too! I'm curious whether there's some polygenic influences at work as well, since only 11% of COS patients had your deleted gene.
Toria, This is a very interesting study! I was also wondering since only 11% were found to have this specific gene deletion what other aspects were missing and identical in COS and AOS. This is interesting to see the nuerobiological aspect of this highly genetic disorder!
Toria, I also think it is interesting to read about the biological components of COS. I also thought it was interesting that it was interesting that only 11% had the gene deleted. I wonder if theres more similarities in the genes that they haven't yet detected between COS and AOS.
After reading this chapter, I couldn't help but wonder if social class had any effect on COS. For example, you would think that people of a high social class would be more at risk due to high stress to pertain a certain image.
I found a study that was done on the social origin and early onset of schizophrenia in the Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort involving a perspective study of 11,000 people monitored from age 16-27 years old. Family, social, and clinical characteristics that could possibly be linked to increase risk were also studied. The data derived from medical and case records showed that the cumulative incidence of early onset SZ until 23 years old was higher in young persons from the higher social class than lower. SZ was higher in than expected in girls, firstborns, and children of young mothers less than 30 years of age. However, background factors or clinical course between cases from class1 and other social classes had no clear differences.
I can not believe that a father or mother’s career advancement, often linked to mental disorder, maybe a defining factor of increased risk of SZ in a child!
Mäkikyrö, T., Isohanni, M., Moring, J., Oja, H., Hakko, H., Jones, P., & Rantakallio, P. (1997). Is a child's risk of early onset schizophrenia increased in the highest social class?. Schizophrenia Research, 23(3), 245-252. doi:10.1016/S0920-9964(96)00119-3
I found your post very interesting because I wouldn't think that social class would affect child onset schizophrenia. It made me think about the genetic component since there could be a correlation since most of these people that were studied were from a high class, and their mentality could be to only mate with people of a certain class too! Maybe they were passing on a gene associated with schizophrenia without their knowledge. Nonetheless, I would feel like the results could've shown that people from a low socioeconomic status would be more prone to schizophrenia due to the stressors in their lives, but this study just rejects that idea, so it's interesting to see this.
You made a very intriguing question! I never thought social class would possibly affect onset of schizophrenia. I was really interested that high class had higher rates than lower class. If anything, I could see them being equal, because high class children have the stressors of holding a certain image, but low class children also have the stressors of being in a low class family, the stress the parents may have, and learning how to provide for themselves at an earlier age than high class children might have to.
Regan, I was not only interested in the overall point of your post about higher social class affects, but what caught my eye was when you mentioned who was more prone to SZ. I would not have guessed that girls are more expected to get SZ, however; I wasn't surprised by the first born part. I thought that was typical because first borns are held on such a high pedastal that the stressors may have an affect.
I agree with you I would have never thought that career advancement and being wealthy could have put you at risk for schizophrenia. If anything I would have thought the opposite lower ses would be at more risk. Also the link to schizophrenia with first born children and children of young mothers was very surprising. I think more large studies like this one need to be done to figure out if these findings are accurate and maybe some possible ways to avoid developing the disorder.
Hey Regan, This is actually something that was really interesting to think about and wasn't something that I thought about the deeper problems this could cause. Good Question
I find this link between SES and COS very interesting. While SES has many factors associated with many disorders, I do not believe there is a direct link or pathway of high SES to COS. I think there maybe another factor, maybe more environmental and biological. For example, children are more at risk of depression and anxiety if their parents have these disorders, model negative coping skills, neglect or maltreat the child, and many more. Although all these factors have a link to the disorder, it is not a direct link, and the links can be associated with parents of high or low SES. Also there might be a higher diagnosis in high SES because they have a better opportunity to receive sufficient diagnosis and treatment, while the low SES might not have that opportunity, making it less likely to report diagnosis.
Regan- Very interesting question! I could have never imagined stress could do so much to a person! It is kind of odd how people go to such great lengths to maintain an image. I would have never thought social class could be a factor in schizophrenia. Great post! I am intrigued to look more into this study!!
I would have never even imagined to think Of this type of question just because I wouldn't think that social class would affect anything like schizophrenia! Your post was really intriguing and makes me more curious about how social class can affect each individual! Great post!!
I found this chapter definitely more interesting because I am very interested in psychological abnormalities. I took abnormal psychology and I thought my teacher said that schizophrenia is something that happens in young adulthood and is not typically seen in kids. SO I found it very interesting that we are learning about childhood onset of schizophrenia. I decided to look up a study of the severity of Childhood onset schizophrenia.
I found a study called "Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia: The Severity of Premorbid Course", which was done by nine very credible psychologists. They took 23 children that met criteria for childhood onset schizophrenia and compared their childhood data to those who had later onset schizophrenia. They found that, compared to those with later onset schizophrenia, those with childhood onset schizophrenia had "greater delay in language development, and more premorbid speech and language disorders, learning disorders, and disruptive behavior disorders" which I found extremely interesting. The study found that having childhood onset schizophrenia affected temporal and frontal lobe development which caused the language difficulties. They also found that the basil ganglia was affected which caused the motor problems.
Alaghband-rad, Javad, Kathleen McKenna, Charles T. Gordon, Kathleen E. Albus, Susan D. Hamburger, Judith M. Rumsey, Jean A. Frazier, Marge C. Lenane, and Judith L. Rapoport. "Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia: The Severity of Premorbid Course." Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia: The Severity of Premorbid Course. Elsevier Inc, 14 Nov. 2009. Web. 14 Nov. 2016
Desiree, This is a very interesting read as I too, took abnormal psychology and understood the same exact thing about onset. It seems to be an interesting developmental issue, that I really wish more research could be done on. Nice article!
Desiree, This was an interesting read! It was interesting to see what the brain structural differences were with childhood-onset schizophrenia. I wonder how we could treat childhood-onset to help with these brain abnormalities. Are the abnormalities causing schizophrenia or is the schizophrenia having an affect on the brain? I would be interested to find more information on that!
Desiree, I found your blog post topic to be very interesting. I too was under the assumption that schizophrenia was a psychological disorder meant for adults, not necessarily children. I could see how those with childhood onset might experience more impairment when compared to those with onset during adolescents or adulthood. Like other disorders we've covered in this class, the earlier the onset, the more severe the deficits. I think your post will be beneficial to keep in mind while we continue to cover COS in class. Thanks for posting!
Desiree, This is something cool to be learning because I had the same thing happen in abnormal psych. It's interesting to see how these abnormalities can cause developmental problems that cause such severe life problems to the patient. I can see why, from these deficits, why it's so closely related to autism.
Desiree, I can totally see how the COS patients have more developmental issues than those with later onset. Since the developmental stages for children are such a crucial time, they must have missed important milestones once it started to interfere with daily life. I would have never thought of it that way, thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Desiree, I had a similar question. I am currently in physiological psychology so we've been talking about the effects of damage to the basal ganglia. We didn't discuss COS however after reading your article I can understand why they're related. I find it really interesting to about the learning deficits. Good post!
As I was reading the text and the complications towards child schizophrenia, I began to think about these complications when it comes to the caretakers of the children diagnosed with this disorder. So my question was, how are the experiences of the caretakers and/or families of children with schizophrenia relate possibly to the caretakers/family members of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder?
In an peer-reviewed article I found, the study consisted of interviews done to the caretakers of the child with schizophrenia after rapport was established. Results showed that there were more negative experiences discussed during the interviews. High levels of stress were experienced by caretakers/families due to lack of communication between the mental health worker and the families, support and just fear of uncertainty of what the child is going through. Through this, I wonder and hope that there could be more done towards child schizophrenia research so that parents can try and understand what is going on with their child. I'm guessing the lack of research may be part of why there are not many government-funded support systems or groups for the families/caretakers of children with schizophrenia.
April, You make a very interesting point. I didn't even take into consideration about how COS and ASD family experiences could be similar. I think that the family experiences based on the book for those with COS would be much more difficult. This is due to the fact that their child is born relatively normal and then over time essentially becomes someone in which they were not previously. I also agree with you that there should be more funding for these family for their suffering children.
That is a very interesting point about government-funded support for families/caretakers of children with COS. While COS consist of a small population, I could only image the financial and time consuming resources it takes from the family. As they are trying to financial provide for their child, they are also spending a lot of time on the matter of the child's disorder which in conflicting with their job assumably. Hopefully with more research this issue can be attended to.
Reading about childhood-onset COS, I was struck by how much focus is placed on biological and genetic bases of etiology for this psychiatric disorder. Given its heavy biological base, I was curious about the correlation to parental psychiatric diagnoses, especially schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders or autism.
An article by Kusumi & Ross looked at psychiatric diagnoses in caregivers of COS patients--not quite parents, but typically biologically related, and also able to address certain environmental questions. Their results indicated that psychotic disorders were three times as likely to be present in caregivers of COS children than as control parents. However, this disparity isn't just true in psychotic disorders--it applies to mood disorders (2x as many) and anxiety disorders (1.5x as many) as well. This makes me curious about a common etiology or environment that creates a higher diathesis to all sorts of psychiatric disorders.
Kusumi, J., & Ross, R. G. (2012). Prevalence of psychiatric illness in primary caretakers of childhood-onset schizophrenia subjects. Mental Illness, 4(2).
Elyssa, This is very interesting! I know some disorders can be caused because of genealogy, but I did not know caregivers could (some related and some not) contribute to that extent. I also wonder what environmental factors could be contributing to etiology as well!
Elyssa, This is interesting! It really shows how the environment can play a huge role in affecting our mental health. Even in schizophrenia, where it is largely biologically influenced, someone can still develop schizophrenia due to their environment. It is most likely still a combination of the two. I like to think of the diathesis-stress model for this disorder especially, since a psychotic episode can often be triggered by excess stress in one's life. Thank you for sharing, great post!!
While reading, I found a section of the book that mentions, "when in a grip of a psychosis, they (child) may behave unpredictably and may become violent," very interesting. It made me wonder first, what violent was defined as for a child and secondly, what if violence is a factor that can predict schizophrenia?
I found a study that's goal was to investigate the extent to which violent conviction in late adolescence predicted later schizophrenia. A group of adolescents aged 15-19 were studied from 1992-2001. All of the participants either had a conviction of violence, nonviolence, or both. Violent crimes were split between serious crimes (brutal assault, attempted homicide, etc.), other crimes, sexual offenses, and arson. The results were not very shocking, young criminals who committed violent crimes between the ages 15-19 predicted later hospitalization for schizophrenia. Another important aspect to this study was if the person was previously admitted into a psychiatric facility. Knowing both aspects, admittance and violent crimes committed would be factors to consider for screening someone for schizophrenia, as 24% actually showed this outcome in the study.
I enjoyed this study because it talked about the importance of catching and some of the correlations between violence (crimes committed in adolescence) and the likelihood of being diagnosed with schizophrenia later. The study also mentioned how important it is to provide early intervention if schizophrenic symptoms are screened and I agree completely.
Gosden, N. P., Kramp, P., Gabrielsen, G., Andersen, T., & Sestoft, D. (2005, February). Violence of Young Criminals Predicts Schizophrenia: A 9-Year Register-Based Followup of 15- to 19-Year-Old Criminals. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 31(3), 759-768. doi:10.1093/schbul/sbi015
I definitely think that violence could be a factor in schizophrenia or even any mental illness in general. I know movies and tv aren't always accurate but I've noticed in a lot of shows they depict violent characters in a way that also makes them "crazy". I'm not sure if you watch Shameless, but I catch myself diagnosing people constantly on that show and there definitely seems to be a pattern, haha!
While reading the part of the textbook on childhood onset schizophrenia, I became increasingly interested on the treatment of the disorder. Especially after reading the story of Mary on page 187, I was curious (and quite frankly disturbed) about how after all of the years of treatment she had received, she still committed suicide. It got me wondering how effective therapy is, and since we are dealing with children here, is family therapy something that is incorporated into treatment as well?
I found a study that focused on how childhood onset schizophrenia (COS) can affect a family as a unit. It explained that COS has a very high likelihood of disturbing and reshaping family functioning. For example, the parents may have to deal with possible violent and aggressive symptoms, or on the other end of the spectrum, they could be challenged with a catatonic child. In addition, the family may have to change their finance structure to be able to afford therapy which has the ability to cause a disruption in the cohesiveness of a family unit. The study also specified that there is little knowledge of how effective antipsychotics can be for children with COS. Therefore, it can be beneficial for the family to engage in family therapy. As discussed in the study, one aspect of family intervention would be suppressing the levels of high expressed emotion, or exaggeration of criticism, hostility, and intrusiveness in the household. The decrease in high expressed emotion can lead to a decrease in schizophrenic symptom relapses. In addition, multi-family therapy groups may be beneficial since it provides an opportunity for supporting family members to share experiences and struggles that they may have faced with their child with COS. Lastly, structural family therapy can teach the family how to determine boundaries, coalitions, hierarchy, and detouring. This form of therapy also emphasizes a healthier level of interaction between family members which may help the child feel safer in their home. It is vitally important that the child and the family communicate with each other effectively. This also makes the child feel safer and may aid in suppressing some of their symptoms. Unfortunately this study didn’t do a great job at answering my question of how effective these therapies are in statistical terms, but it gave me a better understanding of what family therapy would look like in treating childhood onset schizophrenia.
Hall, S. D., & Bean, R. A. (2008). Family therapy and childhood-onset schizophrenia: Pursuing clinical and bio/psycho/social competence. Contemporary Family Therapy: An International Journal, 30(2), 61-74. doi:10.1007/s10591-008-9061-7
After reading this chapter in the book it began to make me wonder about the negative effects being socially excluded can have one someone with schizophrenia?
I found a peer-reviewed article online that actually talked about this. They did an experiment where they took individuals with schizophrenia, and non-clinical controls engaged in a ball-tossing game virtually. All participants played this game on two different occasions inclusion, and and ostracism. The results suggested that those with schizophrenia had longer lasting negative impacts. It also said that clinical participants that reported low primary needs were more likely to have higher levels of depression, stress and anxiety. The results didn't really surprise me. It just saddens me that people get excluded for being different.
Perry, Y., Henry, J. D., Sethi, N., & Grisham, J. R. (2011). The pain persists: How social exclusion affects individuals with schizophrenia. British Journal Of Clinical Psychology, 50(4), 339-349. doi:10.1348/014466510X523490
Heather, I found your post to be extremely interesting. I also think it is sad of how badly kids treat kids with mental impairments or kids that are just different in general. I wish school at young ages taught social skills for kids that were different.
Heather, I agree. Kids can be mean! Considering that the most common onset for COS is during the teenage years, it makes sense that they can be isolated from their peers. It makes me sad, because I can remember some kids that had ASD in my high school, and people were mean to them. I regret not standing up for those kids more often, especially now that I realize how important it is for their mental health to be socially accepted by their peers. I realize that this is completely different from schizophrenia, but since I don't know anyone with schizophrenia, that is the only personal experience I can relate to. Thank you for sharing!
Heather- Interesting post! It so really is a sad sight to see when children get excluded from things, especially when it is not their fault for being different. I am intrigued to look more into this study and see if gender played a role. Overall great post! Interesting topic!
As I was reading the chapter, I started to wonder if stress could affect the baby while in the womb. There wasn't much research I could find, however, I found one similar to answer my question.
In this study, the hypothesis was that maternal stress could be a risk factor for the child to have schizophrenia later on. The women that were followed were aged 16 to 28 years old. During the seventh to ninth month of pregnancy, the researchers asked if their pregnancy was wanted, mistimed but wanted, or unwanted. The results concluded that pregnancies that were unwanted might have operated as a stress to the baby, making the child more liable to schizophrenia later on.
I found this study to be interesting! I had a guess that stress would affect the baby, but I didn't think schizophrenia would be a result. I wonder if there were any confounding variables in the study such as maternal medicine for the baby's health. I would love to find more research on this topic, however, I couldn't find much. I hope to find more later on!
Myhrman, A., Rantakallio, P., Isohanni, M., Jones, P., & Partanen, U. (1996). Unwantedness of a pregnancy and schizophrenia in the child. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 169(5), 637–640. doi:10.1192/bjp.169.5.637
I would never have thought that becoming stressed while pregnant could cause a child to have schizophrenia! That is extremely interesting and I would be curious to dig more into that research and understand it a lot better! Great question and good post!
Christina, This is very interesting! I wonder if they took into account to types of stress that mostly affected the pregnant mothers. I also wonder what gender the children were for the unwanted group.
Christina, Interesting question and I'm glad you found some kind of research because this was very fascinating! I find it kind of scary that stress could very well be a risk factor for schizophrenia because I think a lot of pregnant woman go through some type of stress related events during their term that they cannot control. I also wonder, as Lauren mentioned above, if they gender of the child plays a significant factor or if it is a general conclusion that either male or female may be susceptible to SZ later.
Our chapter on childhood onset schizophrenia (COS) was very interesting to me. I find schizophrenia interesting because of how different their brain works. Personally, I have a hard time understanding it in adults so I can’t even imagine how difficult it would be for a child to go through. I got to thinking about other similar disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorder(ASD) and if there was a comorbidity of COS with any other disorder or even a similarity between COS and any other disorder.
ReplyDeleteI found an article on comparing the neuroimaging of schizophrenia and ASD. In children, ASD is more common with 1 in 88 children however COS is much less common with 1 in 10,000-30,000 children being diagnosed. This article compared children who were on the more severe end of ASD. The article found that the temporoparietal junction that is the central to integration of social information and empathy were similar. I thought it was interesting as well that both COS and ASD have similar thinning in that region. In addition, the orbital frontal cortex is also similar in it’s abnormal thickness compared to the norm. Lastly, there was a reduced amount of white matter in the corpus callosum in both COS and ASD with up to a 15% deficit for both. After reading the article I thought it was interesting that there were so many similarities between the two. I personally wouldn’t have put the two together.
Baribeau, D. A., & Anagnostou, E. (2013). A Comparison of Neuroimaging Findings in Childhood Onset Schizophrenia and Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Review of the Literature. Frontiers in Psychiatry Front. Psychiatry, 4. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2013.00175
Hi Leeann,
DeleteChild onset schizophrenia is one of the more complicated disorders we have learned about. It makes plenty of sense to me that COS would not be common. Adult schizophrenia is so rare. I have never considered comorbidity with ASD. I would think that would make both disorders very difficult to diagnose due to the brain patterns.
Hi Alex, I completely agree. It was very surprising that so many cranial similarities existed between the two. I wonder what the comorbidity between the two are.
DeleteLeeann,
DeleteI agree that it would be really hard to have both COS and ASD at the same time. I think it is interesting that temporoparietal junction was similar in both cases. I think that looking at empathy is an interesting topic since it's hard to imagine a person lacking empathy.
Leeann,
DeleteI enjoyed your post! It was interesting to learn the similarities in brain structure between COS and ASD children. I would be interested to learn how those brain structural similarities looked or played out in daily life (i.e. behavior, communication). Like you and Lauren said, it is difficult to fully understand and picture schizophrenia, but your post added more depth to it for me. Overall, this was a great post!
Erin Cameron
Hi Leeann,
DeleteGreat post! I never would've thought about ASD and COS being associated with each other or act in similar regions of the brain. I found it interesting how both of these disorders had a thicker frontal cortex. Specifically, I found it interesting since this is a region for higher processing. It makes sense that it would be different from the norm since both of these disorders consist of abnormal behavior that in turns affects the overall shape of certain parts of the brain. This is what amazes me, and makes me wonder how other parts of the brain do people with schizophrenia experience a change in and how it affects their overall behavior.
Good job on your post!
Really good post!
DeleteIts cool that they found a possible biological reason that could be affecting these individuals. I wonder if they could do some testing and stimulate that area of the brain in someone with severe cos to see if that helped their symptoms (voices/behaviors). I think its great that they have found a possible link to these disorders so that now they can possibly come up with better cures for these disorders.
Hi Leeann. I completely agree with you, childhood onset schizophrenia is hard to wrap my brain around. It makes sense that COS is not very common in children, because it is only around 1% likelihood in the general adult population. I wonder if both COS and Schizophrenia have the same over abundance of dopamine in the brain? I have also never thought about the similarities between ASD and COS. Before today, I would never have thought there were any.
ReplyDeleteBased on the text, childhood onset schizophrenia seems complicated. From my understanding, it is not very simple to diagnose in general, but particularly in children. After reading the text I wanted to know if there are any developmental patterns in children diagnosed with childhood onset schizophrenia? Specifically, do symptoms occur in a predictable pattern or does it vary greatly in each individual case?
ReplyDeleteIn a peer-reviewed article, I found that this topic is not heavily researched and researchers cannot draw any real conclusions due to the lack of research. This research, however, did give some indication of developmental patterns in children with childhood onset schizophrenia. What I found very interesting about this study is some of the children in the sample were diagnosed in very early childhood with autism (based on DSM-III). Of the participants who initially were diagnosed with autism, it was considered severe until the time of their schizophrenia onset. At this time, the autism was nearly overshadowed by the schizophrenic symptoms. The participants who lacked criterion to be diagnosed with autism along with schizophrenia did not experience as severe symptoms through development. Some of these severe patterns in development included motor functioning delays, an increasing difficulty with language, and failure to meet developmental benchmarks. Participants diagnosed with autism first and then schizophrenia continued to struggle in developmental areas with age.
This study was very complex. It did not answer my question directly, but it did show that comorbidity with autism makes the pattern of symptoms less obvious unless compared to children without autism. I find it interesting that autism and schizophrenia worked together within these children to harshly hinder their development. This study does show, however, that childhood onset schizophrenia may not be obvious because the symptoms may not be severe or in a pattern. This was a very interesting study.
Watkins, J. M., Asarnow, R. F., & Tanguay, P. E. (1988). Symptom development in childhood onset schizophrenia. Journal Of Child Psychology And Psychiatry, And Allied Disciplines, 29(6), 865-878.
Alex-Marie,
DeleteThat study seems really interesting! I am surprised that the onset schizophrenia overshadowed the severe autism. That is something that I wouldn't have expected. Did the autistic symptoms disappear with the onset schizophrenia? Or were the schizophrenic symptoms just that much more prominent?
Hi Alex, your post was very interesting! I was surprised at how hard COS is to diagnose. I wonder how many children are missing out on a diagnosis or are only diagnosed with ASD and not receiving treatment. I also wonder if the pharmaceutical treatment for adults could be given to children with COS?
DeleteAlex-Marie,
DeleteThis post was very interesting. I like how you looked at early signs or patterns of symptoms because that could really aid in the diagnosis/treatment/outcome of schizophrenia. The developmental patterns depicted in the study seem to be symptoms that could suggest many different things (IDD, ASD, etc.), so I could see how it would be very difficult to diagnose a child with schizophrenia. On the other hand, I wonder if the lack of research could be somewhat due to how rare schizophrenia is, making it seem like a research topic that could be put on the back-burner or deemed as less important. Either way, this study shows how necessary further research is in the area of childhood schizophrenia. This was a great post!
Erin Cameron
Alex-Marie,
DeleteGood job on your post. I feel like I have read before about comorbidity of COS and autism, but I was shocked that autism would "overshadow" earlier symptoms of COS. I know you mentioned it was a difficult to understand, but I am interested to see when this overshadowing decays! Hopefully future studies can clear it up.
Alex-Marie,
DeleteNice post, it is difficult for us to see that COS is a difficult disorder to understand. That is maybe why autism spectrum disorder could cover up this disorder. As mentioned below, I wish more research could be conducted to clear this all out!
Nice Work!
Hi, Alex-Marie,
DeleteThis actually makes sense in context of how rare COS (1 in ~40,000 is the estimate I've seen) is. In that context, any residual "weirdness" caused by psychosis or hallucinations might be easily explained by autism, something more common and easier to understand. this might be especially true in contexts where autism itself isn't well-understood either.
Hey Alex-Marie!
DeleteGreat blog post. I remember briefly discussing autism in our COS in-class discussion today, so I found your blog post interesting. Your post mentioned that sometimes schizophrenia in children might go unnoticed because of the lack of consistent symptoms, and that the abnormal behaviors might be blamed on autism. This makes sense considering autism in children is more common than schizophrenia. In all honesty, if I was a parent, it would be a lot easier for me to wrap my head around having an autistic child versus having a schizophrenic child. The further research advances on COS, the easier it should be for doctors to distinguish between autism and schizophrenia. This should help those children who are living with COS in that early detection should benefit their treatment process.
I have read in many books over the years that schizophrenia, as a whole is an extremely genetic disorder. While reading the book, it also talked about how it was neurobiological disorder. I was curious to know, which patterns in the genes can effect childhood onset schizophrenia (COS).
ReplyDeleteThe article that I found looked at childhood onset schizophrenia and copy number variants (CNVs). They examined the CNVs in the children, chose 46 CNVs to compare with their sibling controls, and to look at rates of high risk CNVs. There were 126 COS patients and 117 siblings that participated. The researchers looked at single nucleotide polymorphisms genotyping. After they examined the DNA, the researchers found that COS carried more disease-related CNVs than patients with adult onset schizophrenia (AOS). I found this not surprising because, one would think that that there would be more CNVs in COS than AOS since the age of onset is earlier. They found many of the same deletions in the genes across the patients with COS. They found one specific gene though that had been deleted in 11% of the sample, which was higher than they were expecting. I found this study extremely interesting, even thought it was highly biology based, it shows that there is a strong genetic influence on COS.
Ahn, K., Gotay, N., Andersen, T. M., Anvari, A. A., Gochman, P., Lee, Y., & ... Rapoport, J. L. (2014). High rate of disease-related copy number variations in childhood onset schizophrenia. Molecular Psychiatry, 19(5), 568-572. doi:10.1038/mp.2013.59
Toria,
DeleteI think it is good to see the biological side of COS. Schizophrenia is known to be a genetic disorder, as you mentioned above, so comparing COS to AOS can give some perspective. I wonder if the CNVs have anything to do with age of onset or if, rather, age of onset impacts the CNVs. I find it crazy that a common factor among the participants was a deleted gene. I'm sure they were shocked that over 10% of the sample shared this genetic "mutation" (for lack of a better term). I would be interested to know more about that gene and how it plays a role in COS since it is not prevalent in the entire sample.
Hi, Toria,
DeleteMost of the articles I'm seeing on this concern biological bases for COS, especially gray matter and cortical layering. However, genetic influence makes sense too! I'm curious whether there's some polygenic influences at work as well, since only 11% of COS patients had your deleted gene.
Toria,
DeleteThis is a very interesting study! I was also wondering since only 11% were found to have this specific gene deletion what other aspects were missing and identical in COS and AOS. This is interesting to see the nuerobiological aspect of this highly genetic disorder!
Toria, I also think it is interesting to read about the biological components of COS. I also thought it was interesting that it was interesting that only 11% had the gene deleted. I wonder if theres more similarities in the genes that they haven't yet detected between COS and AOS.
Delete
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this chapter, I couldn't help but wonder if social class had any effect on COS. For example, you would think that people of a high social class would be more at risk due to high stress to pertain a certain image.
I found a study that was done on the social origin and early onset of schizophrenia in the Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort involving a perspective study of 11,000 people monitored from age 16-27 years old. Family, social, and clinical characteristics that could possibly be linked to increase risk were also studied. The data derived from medical and case records showed that the cumulative incidence of early onset SZ until 23 years old was higher in young persons from the higher social class than lower. SZ was higher in than expected in girls, firstborns, and children of young mothers less than 30 years of age. However, background factors or clinical course between cases from class1 and other social classes had no clear differences.
I can not believe that a father or mother’s career advancement, often linked to mental disorder, maybe a defining factor of increased risk of SZ in a child!
Mäkikyrö, T., Isohanni, M., Moring, J., Oja, H., Hakko, H., Jones, P., & Rantakallio, P. (1997). Is a child's risk of early onset schizophrenia increased in the highest social class?. Schizophrenia Research, 23(3), 245-252. doi:10.1016/S0920-9964(96)00119-3
Hi Regan,
DeleteI found your post very interesting because I wouldn't think that social class would affect child onset schizophrenia. It made me think about the genetic component since there could be a correlation since most of these people that were studied were from a high class, and their mentality could be to only mate with people of a certain class too! Maybe they were passing on a gene associated with schizophrenia without their knowledge. Nonetheless, I would feel like the results could've shown that people from a low socioeconomic status would be more prone to schizophrenia due to the stressors in their lives, but this study just rejects that idea, so it's interesting to see this.
Overall, good post!
Regan,
DeleteYou made a very intriguing question! I never thought social class would possibly affect onset of schizophrenia. I was really interested that high class had higher rates than lower class. If anything, I could see them being equal, because high class children have the stressors of holding a certain image, but low class children also have the stressors of being in a low class family, the stress the parents may have, and learning how to provide for themselves at an earlier age than high class children might have to.
Good job!
Regan,
DeleteI was not only interested in the overall point of your post about higher social class affects, but what caught my eye was when you mentioned who was more prone to SZ. I would not have guessed that girls are more expected to get SZ, however; I wasn't surprised by the first born part. I thought that was typical because first borns are held on such a high pedastal that the stressors may have an affect.
Good Post!
DeleteI agree with you I would have never thought that career advancement and being wealthy could have put you at risk for schizophrenia. If anything I would have thought the opposite lower ses would be at more risk. Also the link to schizophrenia with first born children and children of young mothers was very surprising. I think more large studies like this one need to be done to figure out if these findings are accurate and maybe some possible ways to avoid developing the disorder.
Hey Regan,
DeleteThis is actually something that was really interesting to think about and wasn't something that I thought about the deeper problems this could cause. Good Question
Regan,
DeleteI find this link between SES and COS very interesting. While SES has many factors associated with many disorders, I do not believe there is a direct link or pathway of high SES to COS. I think there maybe another factor, maybe more environmental and biological. For example, children are more at risk of depression and anxiety if their parents have these disorders, model negative coping skills, neglect or maltreat the child, and many more. Although all these factors have a link to the disorder, it is not a direct link, and the links can be associated with parents of high or low SES. Also there might be a higher diagnosis in high SES because they have a better opportunity to receive sufficient diagnosis and treatment, while the low SES might not have that opportunity, making it less likely to report diagnosis.
Regan-
DeleteVery interesting question! I could have never imagined stress could do so much to a person! It is kind of odd how people go to such great lengths to maintain an image. I would have never thought social class could be a factor in schizophrenia. Great post! I am intrigued to look more into this study!!
I would have never even imagined to think Of this type of question just because I wouldn't think that social class would affect anything like schizophrenia! Your post was really intriguing and makes me more curious about how social class can affect each individual! Great post!!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI found this chapter definitely more interesting because I am very interested in psychological abnormalities. I took abnormal psychology and I thought my teacher said that schizophrenia is something that happens in young adulthood and is not typically seen in kids. SO I found it very interesting that we are learning about childhood onset of schizophrenia. I decided to look up a study of the severity of Childhood onset schizophrenia.
ReplyDeleteI found a study called "Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia: The Severity of Premorbid Course", which was done by nine very credible psychologists. They took 23 children that met criteria for childhood onset schizophrenia and compared their childhood data to those who had later onset schizophrenia. They found that, compared to those with later onset schizophrenia, those with childhood onset schizophrenia had "greater delay in language development, and more premorbid speech and language disorders, learning disorders, and disruptive behavior disorders" which I found extremely interesting. The study found that having childhood onset schizophrenia affected temporal and frontal lobe development which caused the language difficulties. They also found that the basil ganglia was affected which caused the motor problems.
Alaghband-rad, Javad, Kathleen McKenna, Charles T. Gordon, Kathleen E. Albus, Susan D. Hamburger, Judith M. Rumsey, Jean A. Frazier, Marge C. Lenane, and Judith L. Rapoport. "Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia: The Severity of Premorbid Course." Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia: The Severity of Premorbid Course. Elsevier Inc, 14 Nov. 2009. Web. 14 Nov. 2016
Desiree,
DeleteThis is a very interesting read as I too, took abnormal psychology and understood the same exact thing about onset. It seems to be an interesting developmental issue, that I really wish more research could be done on.
Nice article!
Desiree,
DeleteThis was an interesting read! It was interesting to see what the brain structural differences were with childhood-onset schizophrenia. I wonder how we could treat childhood-onset to help with these brain abnormalities. Are the abnormalities causing schizophrenia or is the schizophrenia having an affect on the brain? I would be interested to find more information on that!
Desiree,
DeleteI found your blog post topic to be very interesting. I too was under the assumption that schizophrenia was a psychological disorder meant for adults, not necessarily children. I could see how those with childhood onset might experience more impairment when compared to those with onset during adolescents or adulthood. Like other disorders we've covered in this class, the earlier the onset, the more severe the deficits. I think your post will be beneficial to keep in mind while we continue to cover COS in class. Thanks for posting!
Desiree,
DeleteThis is something cool to be learning because I had the same thing happen in abnormal psych. It's interesting to see how these abnormalities can cause developmental problems that cause such severe life problems to the patient. I can see why, from these deficits, why it's so closely related to autism.
Desiree,
DeleteI can totally see how the COS patients have more developmental issues than those with later onset. Since the developmental stages for children are such a crucial time, they must have missed important milestones once it started to interfere with daily life. I would have never thought of it that way, thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Kristen Lee
Desiree,
DeleteI had a similar question. I am currently in physiological psychology so we've been talking about the effects of damage to the basal ganglia. We didn't discuss COS however after reading your article I can understand why they're related. I find it really interesting to about the learning deficits. Good post!
As I was reading the text and the complications towards child schizophrenia, I began to think about these complications when it comes to the caretakers of the children diagnosed with this disorder. So my question was, how are the experiences of the caretakers and/or families of children with schizophrenia relate possibly to the caretakers/family members of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder?
ReplyDeleteIn an peer-reviewed article I found, the study consisted of interviews done to the caretakers of the child with schizophrenia after rapport was established. Results showed that there were more negative experiences discussed during the interviews. High levels of stress were experienced by caretakers/families due to lack of communication between the mental health worker and the families, support and just fear of uncertainty of what the child is going through.
Through this, I wonder and hope that there could be more done towards child schizophrenia research so that parents can try and understand what is going on with their child. I'm guessing the lack of research may be part of why there are not many government-funded support systems or groups for the families/caretakers of children with schizophrenia.
April,
DeleteYou make a very interesting point. I didn't even take into consideration about how COS and ASD family experiences could be similar. I think that the family experiences based on the book for those with COS would be much more difficult. This is due to the fact that their child is born relatively normal and then over time essentially becomes someone in which they were not previously. I also agree with you that there should be more funding for these family for their suffering children.
April,
DeleteThat is a very interesting point about government-funded support for families/caretakers of children with COS. While COS consist of a small population, I could only image the financial and time consuming resources it takes from the family. As they are trying to financial provide for their child, they are also spending a lot of time on the matter of the child's disorder which in conflicting with their job assumably. Hopefully with more research this issue can be attended to.
Reading about childhood-onset COS, I was struck by how much focus is placed on biological and genetic bases of etiology for this psychiatric disorder. Given its heavy biological base, I was curious about the correlation to parental psychiatric diagnoses, especially schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders or autism.
ReplyDeleteAn article by Kusumi & Ross looked at psychiatric diagnoses in caregivers of COS patients--not quite parents, but typically biologically related, and also able to address certain environmental questions. Their results indicated that psychotic disorders were three times as likely to be present in caregivers of COS children than as control parents. However, this disparity isn't just true in psychotic disorders--it applies to mood disorders (2x as many) and anxiety disorders (1.5x as many) as well. This makes me curious about a common etiology or environment that creates a higher diathesis to all sorts of psychiatric disorders.
Kusumi, J., & Ross, R. G. (2012). Prevalence of psychiatric illness in primary caretakers of childhood-onset schizophrenia subjects. Mental Illness, 4(2).
Elyssa,
DeleteThis is very interesting! I know some disorders can be caused because of genealogy, but I did not know caregivers could (some related and some not) contribute to that extent. I also wonder what environmental factors could be contributing to etiology as well!
Elyssa,
DeleteThis is interesting! It really shows how the environment can play a huge role in affecting our mental health. Even in schizophrenia, where it is largely biologically influenced, someone can still develop schizophrenia due to their environment. It is most likely still a combination of the two. I like to think of the diathesis-stress model for this disorder especially, since a psychotic episode can often be triggered by excess stress in one's life. Thank you for sharing, great post!!
While reading, I found a section of the book that mentions, "when in a grip of a psychosis, they (child) may behave unpredictably and may become violent," very interesting. It made me wonder first, what violent was defined as for a child and secondly, what if violence is a factor that can predict schizophrenia?
ReplyDeleteI found a study that's goal was to investigate the extent to which violent conviction in late adolescence predicted later schizophrenia. A group of adolescents aged 15-19 were studied from 1992-2001. All of the participants either had a conviction of violence, nonviolence, or both. Violent crimes were split between serious crimes (brutal assault, attempted homicide, etc.), other crimes, sexual offenses, and arson. The results were not very shocking, young criminals who committed violent crimes between the ages 15-19 predicted later hospitalization for schizophrenia. Another important aspect to this study was if the person was previously admitted into a psychiatric facility. Knowing both aspects, admittance and violent crimes committed would be factors to consider for screening someone for schizophrenia, as 24% actually showed this outcome in the study.
I enjoyed this study because it talked about the importance of catching and some of the correlations between violence (crimes committed in adolescence) and the likelihood of being diagnosed with schizophrenia later. The study also mentioned how important it is to provide early intervention if schizophrenic symptoms are screened and I agree completely.
Gosden, N. P., Kramp, P., Gabrielsen, G., Andersen, T., & Sestoft, D. (2005, February). Violence of Young Criminals Predicts Schizophrenia: A 9-Year Register-Based Followup of 15- to 19-Year-Old Criminals. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 31(3), 759-768. doi:10.1093/schbul/sbi015
I definitely think that violence could be a factor in schizophrenia or even any mental illness in general. I know movies and tv aren't always accurate but I've noticed in a lot of shows they depict violent characters in a way that also makes them "crazy". I'm not sure if you watch Shameless, but I catch myself diagnosing people constantly on that show and there definitely seems to be a pattern, haha!
DeleteWhile reading the part of the textbook on childhood onset schizophrenia, I became increasingly interested on the treatment of the disorder. Especially after reading the story of Mary on page 187, I was curious (and quite frankly disturbed) about how after all of the years of treatment she had received, she still committed suicide. It got me wondering how effective therapy is, and since we are dealing with children here, is family therapy something that is incorporated into treatment as well?
ReplyDeleteI found a study that focused on how childhood onset schizophrenia (COS) can affect a family as a unit. It explained that COS has a very high likelihood of disturbing and reshaping family functioning. For example, the parents may have to deal with possible violent and aggressive symptoms, or on the other end of the spectrum, they could be challenged with a catatonic child. In addition, the family may have to change their finance structure to be able to afford therapy which has the ability to cause a disruption in the cohesiveness of a family unit. The study also specified that there is little knowledge of how effective antipsychotics can be for children with COS. Therefore, it can be beneficial for the family to engage in family therapy. As discussed in the study, one aspect of family intervention would be suppressing the levels of high expressed emotion, or exaggeration of criticism, hostility, and intrusiveness in the household. The decrease in high expressed emotion can lead to a decrease in schizophrenic symptom relapses. In addition, multi-family therapy groups may be beneficial since it provides an opportunity for supporting family members to share experiences and struggles that they may have faced with their child with COS. Lastly, structural family therapy can teach the family how to determine boundaries, coalitions, hierarchy, and detouring. This form of therapy also emphasizes a healthier level of interaction between family members which may help the child feel safer in their home. It is vitally important that the child and the family communicate with each other effectively. This also makes the child feel safer and may aid in suppressing some of their symptoms. Unfortunately this study didn’t do a great job at answering my question of how effective these therapies are in statistical terms, but it gave me a better understanding of what family therapy would look like in treating childhood onset schizophrenia.
Hall, S. D., & Bean, R. A. (2008). Family therapy and childhood-onset schizophrenia: Pursuing clinical and bio/psycho/social competence. Contemporary Family Therapy: An International Journal, 30(2), 61-74. doi:10.1007/s10591-008-9061-7
After reading this chapter in the book it began to make me wonder about the negative effects being socially excluded can have one someone with schizophrenia?
ReplyDeleteI found a peer-reviewed article online that actually talked about this. They did an experiment where they took individuals with schizophrenia, and non-clinical controls engaged in a ball-tossing game virtually. All participants played this game on two different occasions inclusion, and and ostracism. The results suggested that those with schizophrenia had longer lasting negative impacts. It also said that clinical participants that reported low primary needs were more likely to have higher levels of depression, stress and anxiety.
The results didn't really surprise me. It just saddens me that people get excluded for being different.
Perry, Y., Henry, J. D., Sethi, N., & Grisham, J. R. (2011). The pain persists: How social exclusion affects individuals with schizophrenia. British Journal Of Clinical Psychology, 50(4), 339-349. doi:10.1348/014466510X523490
Heather,
DeleteI found your post to be extremely interesting. I also think it is sad of how badly kids treat kids with mental impairments or kids that are just different in general. I wish school at young ages taught social skills for kids that were different.
Heather,
DeleteI agree. Kids can be mean! Considering that the most common onset for COS is during the teenage years, it makes sense that they can be isolated from their peers. It makes me sad, because I can remember some kids that had ASD in my high school, and people were mean to them. I regret not standing up for those kids more often, especially now that I realize how important it is for their mental health to be socially accepted by their peers. I realize that this is completely different from schizophrenia, but since I don't know anyone with schizophrenia, that is the only personal experience I can relate to. Thank you for sharing!
Heather-
DeleteInteresting post! It so really is a sad sight to see when children get excluded from things, especially when it is not their fault for being different. I am intrigued to look more into this study and see if gender played a role. Overall great post! Interesting topic!
As I was reading the chapter, I started to wonder if stress could affect the baby while in the womb. There wasn't much research I could find, however, I found one similar to answer my question.
ReplyDeleteIn this study, the hypothesis was that maternal stress could be a risk factor for the child to have schizophrenia later on. The women that were followed were aged 16 to 28 years old. During the seventh to ninth month of pregnancy, the researchers asked if their pregnancy was wanted, mistimed but wanted, or unwanted. The results concluded that pregnancies that were unwanted might have operated as a stress to the baby, making the child more liable to schizophrenia later on.
I found this study to be interesting! I had a guess that stress would affect the baby, but I didn't think schizophrenia would be a result. I wonder if there were any confounding variables in the study such as maternal medicine for the baby's health. I would love to find more research on this topic, however, I couldn't find much. I hope to find more later on!
Myhrman, A., Rantakallio, P., Isohanni, M., Jones, P., & Partanen, U. (1996). Unwantedness of a pregnancy and schizophrenia in the child. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 169(5), 637–640. doi:10.1192/bjp.169.5.637
I would never have thought that becoming stressed while pregnant could cause a child to have schizophrenia! That is extremely interesting and I would be curious to dig more into that research and understand it a lot better! Great question and good post!
DeleteChristina,
DeleteThis is very interesting! I wonder if they took into account to types of stress that mostly affected the pregnant mothers. I also wonder what gender the children were for the unwanted group.
Christina,
DeleteInteresting question and I'm glad you found some kind of research because this was very fascinating! I find it kind of scary that stress could very well be a risk factor for schizophrenia because I think a lot of pregnant woman go through some type of stress related events during their term that they cannot control. I also wonder, as Lauren mentioned above, if they gender of the child plays a significant factor or if it is a general conclusion that either male or female may be susceptible to SZ later.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete