User:Childhoodschizophrenia

Childhood-onset schizophrenia (COS) is a severe mental illness that occurs in an estimated 1 in 40,000 children. By definition COS is schizophrenia that has an onset of psychosis before age 13. For COS the average age at onset is 9. Due to the rarity of this disorder very few psychiatrists have ever seen a COS case. A psychiatrist not familiar with COS may well spend many months testing medications on a child with a first psychotic episode and not reach the correct diagnosis. It is only in the past decade that COS has come to be recognized as a distinct childhood mental disorder by the medical community. The disorder is very difficult to diagnose in children. Generally, diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric illnesses is still largely a trial and error process, and one that is inherently quite slow. For example, the diagnosis of schizophrenia requires (among other things) an unbroken period of psychosis.

Further information on Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia can be found at:

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Edward Orton, Founder and Director,Childhoodschizophrenia 16:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC) Society for Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia

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