Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness. It is a long-lasting and disabling problem of the brain. A child with this disorder has unusual behavior and strange feelings. He or she may suddenly start to have psychotic symptoms. Psychotic means having strange ideas, thoughts, or feelings that are not based in reality. Schizophrenia is not often found in children younger than age 12. It's also hard to spot in the early stages. Often, the psychotic symptoms start in the middle to late teen years. Slightly more boys develop it in childhood. But by the teen years it affects both boys and girls equally.
Learn more about schizophrenia in children from this file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BezT77oJIHo0DnaBNzZy0fsDppwL5C8q/view?usp=drivesdk
Thanks so much for asking this question @Daniella Moriarty
The following are early signs of schizophrenia in children and adolescents: Changing friends or struggling to keep them
An increase in unusual thoughts and ideas
muddled thinking
severe phobias and anxiety
Inability to relate to peers resulted in decreased self-care and hygiene, as well as increased isolation or social withdrawal.
anxiety (thinking that people are discussing them or out to get them)
attention issues
drop in grades and academic performance
problems with irritability or extreme moodiness sleeping
Not all are mentioned here.. But this eventually fomrs good foundational strategy for proper diagnosis through different methods of observation by the parents or guardians.
Interesting! I'll just look at the document now.
What are the early signs of schizophrenia that can be noticed in childhood and early adolescence then if it can be diagnosed sometimes at those stages?
So, Schizophrenia effects boys more when they are young? Or it is easy to spot symptoms in boys than girls?