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Sholf
Snowy Owl
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Joined: 18 Jun 2008
Age: 39
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Posts: 141

28 Aug 2010, 2:04 pm

Tails wrote:
Before AS was recognised as a condition in its own right, many people on the autistic spectrum were misdiagnosed with childhood schizophrenia in youth. Some of the outward behaviours can display similarly. But there is no proven link between psychotic illness and AS. While they may be comorbid, they're unrelated.


Does childhood schizophrenia even exist anymore as a diagnosis? I thought it was an old, ignorant term for autism.

Certain kids in the foster care system have gotten tagged with "childhood schizophrenia" or "reactive attachment disorder" due to early traumatic experiences. What if some of them were autistic, and the abuse/neglect was in reaction to that? What does it mean when it's so easy for people on the spectrum to be misdiagnosed with psychotic illnesses like schizophrenia or severe bipolar? And what about the co-morbidity with PTSD, which can blunt emotional reactions and cause irritability or hypervigilance that might also look like autistic symptoms? I think psychiatry has a lot of work to do.



TPE2
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28 Aug 2010, 3:37 pm

Sholf wrote:
Tails wrote:
Before AS was recognised as a condition in its own right, many people on the autistic spectrum were misdiagnosed with childhood schizophrenia in youth. Some of the outward behaviours can display similarly. But there is no proven link between psychotic illness and AS. While they may be comorbid, they're unrelated.


Does childhood schizophrenia even exist anymore as a diagnosis? I thought it was an old, ignorant term for autism.


Yes, it exists.

A study about the relation between autism/PDD and childhood schizophrenia:

http://intramural.nimh.nih.gov/chp/arti ... p-2004.pdf