General principles
While antipsychotic drugs remain the cornerstone of treatment in child and adolescent onset schizophrenia, all young patients with schizophrenia require a multimodal treatment package that includes pharmacotherapy,  family and individual counselling,…

Short-term course
Child and adolescent onset schizophrenia characteristically runs a chronic course, with only a small minority of cases making a full symptomatic recovery from the first psychotic episode.

In the Maudsley…

Pattern of cognitive deficits
There is growing awareness that cognitive deficits in schizophrenia represent a core feature of the disorder and cannot simply be dismissed as secondary consequences of psychotic symptoms (Breier 1999). The…

Genetic risk and early onset schizophrenia
If there is a continuum of transmitted liability for schizophrenia then, as with other disorders of presumed multifactorial origin, early onset cases of schizophrenia should be associated with…

Neurodevelopmental models of schizophrenia
Over the last decade the concept of schizophrenia as a neurodevelopmental disorder has taken a strong hold,  although ‘neurodevelopmental’ is often used with a wide range of meanings. It…

Pregnancy and birth complications
Pregnancy and birth complications (PBCs) have been implicated as a risk factor in schizophrenia. In a metaanalysis of 20 case - control studies,  subjects who developed…

Incidence and prevalence
Good   population-based   incidence   figures   for   child   and adolescent onset schizophrenia are notably lacking. What data do exist describe broader categories of psychosis, with diagnoses made…

Diagnostic validity
There is now compelling evidence that schizophrenia can be identified using unmodified adult criteria in children as young as 7 years of age (Green et al. 1984; Russell et…

Psychotic symptoms in children and adolescents are diagnostically non-specific,  occurring in a wide range of functional psychiatric, neurodevelopmental and organic brain disorders.

The differential diagnosis of schizophrenia in childhood and adolescence is summarized in…

Clinical phases of schizophrenia
Premorbid social and developmental impairments

Child and adolescent onset schizophrenia is characterized by poor premorbid functioning and early developmental delays (Alaghband-Rad et al. 1995; Hollis 1995). Similar developmental and…

Schizophrenia is one of the most devastating psychiatric disorders to affect children and adolescents. Although extremely rare before the age of 10, the incidence of schizophrenia rises steadily through adolescence to reach…