Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia

I am not as familiar with childhood schizophrenia as I am with autism, and prior to viewing this video I wasn’t aware how similar they can present.  In the opening of the video we see Jani engaging in a form of hand flapping or what we would assume to be self-stimulatory behavior, and this topography is something that I have in fact seen with some of the students that I work with that have a diagnosis of autism.  Watching the home videos of Jani in her early years, I don’t think that childhood schizophrenia would have entered my mind.  Staring off at things, not engaging in joint attention, engaging in self-stimulatory behavior, these are all things that would have said autism to me.  The behaviors that she exhibited as she got older, engaging in conversation, displaying social skills that are quite usually far beyond individuals with ASD would have raised a red flag that this might not be autism.  However, the fact that when her little brother got upset and she wanted to hurt him might be a sign for either autism or childhood schizophrenia; I have seen many children with ASD who do not like loud noises, or other people getting upset.  However, her hallucinations, the number and quality of them growing over the years, are definite cause for concern.  The fact that she has hallucinations that talk to her repeatedly, that tell her to do things like hit her brother, and that do things to her that she says she can feel in her brain would clearly lead me to think of something more along the lines of schizophrenia.  I think that it is possible that her diagnosis could have been made prior to age seven, as these symptoms were presenting at a very early age.  By observing her behavior, completing assessments with her parents and others who know her, I think the diagnosis of childhood schizophrenia could have been reached earlier.   I also thought it was interesting to note the difference in paranoid schizophrenia in a child and childhood schizophrenia.  The girl with paranoid schizophrenia seemed to exhibit many of the same symptoms that an adult with paranoid schizophrenia would exhibit, and perhaps this fact would help to aid in her diagnosis or in her getting a diagnosis sooner than perhaps Jani would have.