Autism Spectrum Disorder and Childhood Onset Schizophrenia

Name: Article 1 Date:
Reference (APA Format)
Allen, A. R., & Pidano, A. E. (2017). Childhood Schizophrenia and Autism: An Empirical Study of Perceived Social Support. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 26(6), 1664-1670.
Theoretical Basis
A strong relationship has been established between social support and psychotic symptoms. However, there is not study that has analyzed the level of social support received by children with schizophrenia. Children who have low levels of social support have been found to be at a greater risk of increased internalizing and externalizing problems.
Hypothesis
Youth with childhood and adolescent schizophrenia would have less social support than children with autism spectrum disorder.
Children with the least amount of social support would report the lowest level of functioning
Independent Variables
Diagnosis and level of perceived functioning
Dependent Variables
Perceived social support
Control Groups
Children with Autism
Data Analysis & Statistical Methods
Tests used were the t-test and ANOVA. There was a significant interaction between the level of diagnosis and perceived functioning F(6, 13) = 3.51, p = .03, partial ?2 = .62. While the researchers were expecting children with schizophrenia to not perceive having more social support this was not the case.
Discussion Summary
The researchers wanted to measure the amount of social support that is received by children with schizophrenia in comparison to children with autism. The hypothesis of the study was disproven as it was established that children with schizophrenia did receive more social support. Their other hypothesis was also disproven as the results indicate that children with the least amount of social support did not report the lowest level of functioning. The researchers believe this is because there are rare cases of childhood schizophrenia and this makes the community willing to assist. With more advocacy for autism, community members would assume that these children are well taken care and they have all the support they need.
Recommendations for Future Research
Future researchers should make use of child friendly self-report measures for exploring social support in children with schizophrenia. The researchers have recommended that researchers intending to replicate the study should make use of additional diagnostic groups. The parent’s mental health status should be analyzed to determine if it has an impact on their reporting.
I am relating the article to Chapter 6 and Autism Spectrum Disorder and Childhood-Onset-Schizophrenia disorder.
While there are numerous works of literature that focus on the amount of social support that children and adults with mental illness receive. There is limited research that focuses on social support for children and adolescent who are diagnosed with childhood-onset schizophrenia (Jerrell, McIntyre, & Deroche, 2017). The article findings are quite different from the hypothesis of the researchers. This could be based on the fact that there is limited information in the literature that demonstrate the social support that is offered to children diagnosed with childhood-onset schizophrenia (Pina-Camacho, Parellada, & Kyriakopoulos, 2016). Our studies have not focused so much on social support for these children either. While there has been an increase in research regarding childhood and adolescent schizophrenia, there is no research that has concentrated on social support for children with schizophrenia. The low prevalence rates for schizophrenia could be the reason for the lack of research. There are limited information and data regarding children with schizophrenia, which creates a challenge for researchers to gather data regarding the illness. While social support for adults has been studied considerably (Allen & Pidano, 2017), there is no research that covers children who are diagnosed with early-onset schizophrenia. This makes it hard to determine if the children do receive the needed social support and the impact of having or not having it on their lives.
The study made a comparison of the social support that is received by children with autism to that of children with childhood-onset schizophrenia. The researchers were gathering data by using a questionnaire. The questionnaire used was the Family Needs Questionnaire, the Ohio Youth Problem, Functioning, and Satisfaction Scales’ parent form, and a demographics questionnaire. The study aimed at having about 50 participants, 25 participants for each group. However, the study ended up with 53 participants. While the researchers had hypothesized that social support for children with schizophrenia would be less, the results were quite different. The researchers established that children with schizophrenia did perceive to receive more social support that children with autism.
Though the study results did disprove the two hypotheses that the researchers had developed it is interesting to note that the study results were quite favorable. The researchers believe that since childhood-onset schizophrenia is a rare condition, there are more people who are willing to offer assistance to the children as compared to children with autism. The researchers also indicated that since there are more organizations that are focused on autism many community members will assume that the children have all the support they need. However, the lack of organizations speaking about schizophrenia makes the community members assume that the children do not get enough support and they have an increased willingness for assisting the children in any way they can. The reports received were reported by parents and this is based on their perception of support received. This might be biased because a parent could think that they are receiving too much support while in the real sense the support received is limited. The study did not make use of any child participants in the study, which was a limitation since the children could have offered their perspective too. The lack of this perspective renders the study slightly biased towards the parents.
Limitations of the study are the reasons why the researchers have made a recommendation that future studies make use of child reporting too. The researchers have also recommended that there should be an inclusion of other mental disorders. This will reveal if children with other mental disorders do receive more or less social support when compared to children with schizophrenia. The mental status of parents should also be collected, which will disclose if their mental status will impact their perceived social support for their children.
Allen, A. R., & Pidano, A. E. (2017). Childhood Schizophrenia and Autism: An Empirical Study of Perceived Social Support. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 26(6), 1664-1670.
Jerrell, J. M., McIntyre, R. S., & Deroche, C. B. (2017). Diagnostic clusters associated with an early onset schizophrenia diagnosis among children and adolescents. Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental, 32(2), e2589.
Pina-Camacho, L., Parellada, M., & Kyriakopoulos, M. (2016). Autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia: boundaries and uncertainties. BJPsych Advances, 22(5), 316-324.