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Teenage Schizophrenia
A World of Their Own By Carma Haley Shoemaker
"The typical age of onset for schizophrenia is in the late teens or early adulthood," says Russell Scheffer, a clinical psychologist at Southwestern University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. "The onset of clear psychosis is typically in the teens or early adult years. It can occur before the onset of puberty. Prior to the onset of clear-cut psychosis there is often a period of decline in functioning in social situations and school. These negative symptoms, including social withdrawal, are often the most difficult symptoms to treat."
Schizophrenia is not a condition of "split personality," depression, laziness, the influence of inappropriate upbringing or insufficient or uncaring parents. Schizophrenia, like any other disease or illness, has signs, symptoms and means for diagnosis and treatment.
Its cause, however, is still unknown. "There are a variety of theories about the cause of schizophrenia," Scheffer says. "These include a neurodevelopmental model that states that brain abnormalities are present at birth and become expressed at a later date due to maturational or environmental factors. A second hypothesis states that a person would have an underlying genetic vulnerability but would require an environmental stressor such as birth trauma, psychological stressors or head trauma to fully express the illness. There are many other theories about the cause of schizophrenia, and many of these focus on (the brain chemicals) dopamine, serotonin and glutamate."