Although schizophrenia has been described in children as young as 5 years, little systematic research has focused on the childhood onset and its treatment.
Many clinicians misdiagnose it.
Another has been the broad or unspecified criteria for childhood psychosis, which grouped schizophrenic subjects and patients with those afflicted by other problems including autism, organic mental disorders, borderline disorders and major affective disorders. However, not only do the nature and content of symptoms vary with age, but a variety of other severe psychiatric conditions of childhood have symptoms that overlap with those of schizophrenia. The diagnosis remains confusing. Drug treatment for children with the disease has also been problematic, she added, because there have been few controlled studies of neuroleptics on children or adolescents. So it's important to test drugs on this population.