Childhood Schizophrenia

Editor's note: From its first issue in 1900 through to the present day, AJN has unparalleled archives detailing nurses' work and lives over more than a century. These articles not only chronicle nursing's growth as a profession within the context of the events of the day, but they also reveal prevailing societal attitudes about women, health care, and human rights. Today's nursing school curricula rarely include nursing's history, but it's a history worth knowing. To this end, From the AJN Archives highlights articles selected to fit today's topics and times.For many years, autism was thought to be a type of childhood schizophrenia. In AJN's May 1958 issue, an article entitled "Childhood Schizophrenia" describes the inpatient treatment of children with autism. Some parts of it are difficult to read, not because the actual treatment was painful or torturous, but because experts decided that children needed to be away from their parents in order for treatment to be successful. The authors of this article, a pediatric psychiatrist and a psychiatric nurse educator, write, "Because the mother's role is so significant in the child's development . . . in almost every instance, the schizophrenic [autistic] child must be removed from its 'sick' mother in order that adequate remedial measures may be instituted." To read the full article, go to http://links.lww.com/AJN/A175.Today, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is recognized as a neurodevelopmental condition that probably begins during the prenatal to early postnatal period. In this issue, authors Deborah Christensen and Jennifer Zubler provide an update on ASD risk factors, epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment in "From the CDC: Understanding Autism Spectrum Disorder."