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Schizophrenia and Childhood Disorders

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Schizophrenia and Childhood Disorders
PSY/410
September 1, 2012

Schizophrenia and Childhood Disorders
Schizophrenia can affect anyone at any age, but most cases develop between adolescence and age 30. Children can be affected by schizophrenia, but this is uncommon (NAMI, 1998). For many people schizophrenia is often confused with multiple personality disorder. The following paper will discuss the many components of schizophrenia that make it unique as well as the aspects of lifespan development disorders. A quick review of the biological, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral aspects of these two disorders will hopefully inspire the reader to research further.
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a disorder that keeps a person from managing his or her emotions, thinking clearly, or being able to relate to others. According to NAMI (1998, para. 1) schizophrenia is a brain disorder that affects approximately two million or 15% of Americans today. There are two main symptom classis of schizophrenia: positive and negative. The positive symptoms or class I symptoms are what is referred to by Hansell and Damour (2009) as overt or heightened senses/characteristics. Negative or class II symptoms are a lack of behavioral characteristics that are not there. NAMI (1998, para. 7) notes that in order to be diagnosed with schizophrenia, a patient must have psychotic, "loss-of-reality" symptoms for at least six months and show increasing difficulty in functioning normally. When looking at the biological components of schizophrenia one must look at two causes, the proximal and the distal causes. According to Hansell and Damour (2009) one of the areas that seem to be associated with schizophrenia is the prefrontal cortex that seems to decrease its activity causing what is known as hypofrontality. One of the most common biological aspects of schizophrenia is the brains lack of

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