The diagnosis, epidemiology, and etiology of childhood schizophrenia

About half the Australian population of children who were functioning at a moderate or greater level of intellectual subnormality and who also presented schizophrenic behaviors were surveyed. From more than 300 such cases only 21 were confirmed as schizophrenic. Their average age was seven years eight months, four were girls, and eight had histories of normal physical health. Individual data were collected on antenatal and perinatal factors, childhood health, developmental progress, family history, physical characteristics, neurological signs, biochemical anomalies, and behavioral and psychiatric characteristics. These data sustained the hypotheses that the (a) incidence of the condition is slight, that (b) childhood schizophrenia is the result of a multicausal transactional process; that (c) there is a continuum from organic to functional conditions and that (d) the intellectual potential of these children is generally overrated.