Childhood onset schizophrenia and early onset schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

The clinical severity, impact on development, and poor prognosis of childhood onset schizophrenia may represent a more homogeneous group. Positive symptoms in children are necessary for the diagnosis and hallucinations are more often multimodal. In healthy children and children with a variety of other psychiatric illnesses, hallucinations are not uncommon and diagnosis should not be based on these alone. Childhood onset schizophrenia is an extraordinarily rare illness that is poorly understood but seems continuous with the adult onset disorder. Once a diagnosis is affirmed, aggressive medication treatment combined with family education and individual counseling may defer further deterioration.