Childhood Schizophrenia & Autism

Some Signs of Childhood Schizophrenia	Some Signs of Autism
Sleeping issues	Sleeping issues
Language delays	Language delays
Late or unusual crawling	Poor eye contact
Late walking	Resists cuddling or holding
Abnormal motor behaviors such as rocking or arm flapping	Repetitive movements such as rocking or arm flapping
Later in development:	Failure to respond to his/her name
Seeing or hearing things	Becomes disturbed by changes in routine
Delusions	Moves constantly
Lack of emotion	Lack of social and emotional reciprocity
Inappropriate emotions	Impairment in the usage of non-verbal behavior
Social withdrawal	Persistent preoccupation with parts of objects
Strange eating rituals	Lack of varied, spontaneous make-believe play or social imitative play appropriate to developmental level
Agitation	Stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic language

When Jani was a young child, her symptoms were very similar to autism.  Her parents mentioned that Jani had issues with sleeping, being comforted, poor eye contact, and that she never stopped moving.  As she developed she also had apparent hallucinations, an invisible companion, and she heard voices.  As you can see from the chart above, there are many symptoms of childhood schizophrenia and autism that overlap. 

I don’t think it would have been possible to diagnose Jani with childhood schizophrenia much earlier than seven years old.  When Jani was younger her symptoms could easily be confused with autism.   Her hallucinations could have easily been confused with self stimulation, her movements confused with the repetitive movements in autism, and her lack of emotion could have been confused with the lack of social and emotional reciprocity in children with autism.  However as she got older and had an apparent invisible companion it would be much easier to see that she is not autistic.  Children with autism often have trouble with make-believe play, so it would be unlikely that they would have an imaginary friend.  When it became clear that she had delusions and heard voices it became obvious that she had childhood schizophrenia, not autism.

If I were the doctor attempting to diagnose Jani, I would have asked the parents to do exactly what they did.  I would ask them to record some of her behaviors at home.  I would also provide her parents and teachers with questionnaires to fill out regarding behavior at home and at school.  Most importantly I would observe her and ask her questions about her life.