What are signs and symptoms of schizophrenia in a 14 year old girl?

Question

Ok, I have a "friend" who is about 14 and she tells me about strange things that seem crazy! I wonder if she has schizophrenia, but I'm no psychologist! I'd like a little help on how to possibly help her.

Answer 1

People with schizophrenia may have a number of symptoms involving changes in ability and personality, and they may display different kinds of behavior at different times. When the illness first appears, symptoms usually are sudden and severe.

Contrary to popular belief, schizophrenia is not a split personality. Schizophrenia is a psychosis, a type of mental illness in which a person cannot tell what is real from what is imagined. At times, people with psychotic disorders lose touch with reality. The world may seem like a jumble of confusing thoughts, images and sounds. The behavior of people with schizophrenia may be very strange and even shocking. A sudden change in personality and behavior, which occurs when people lose touch with reality, is called a psychotic episode.

For more information, read this: http://www.webmd.com/content/article/60/67143.htm

Answer 2

Only a trained professional can diagnose a mental disability. I doubt your friend has schizophrenia, though, because her parents would have noticed things right away. It's a serious disease and it's not often that people with it can hide it so well. (The delusions/hallucinations come at all manners of time and any grossly disorganized behavior would have been noticed by parents/teachers quite quickly.)

If your friend is just saying she hears voices, blah blah blah, then she's just being a normal fourteen-year-old girl wanting attention and to seem cool and new. Ignore her.

Answer 3

Schizophrenia is characterized by profound disruption in cognition and emotion, affecting the most fundamental human attributes: language, thought, perception, affect, and sense of self. The array of symptoms, while wide ranging, frequently includes psychotic manifestations, such as hearing internal voices or experiencing other sensations not connected to an obvious source (hallucinations) and assigning unusual significance or meaning to normal events or holding fixed false personal beliefs (delusions). No single symptom is definitive for diagnosis; rather, the diagnosis encompasses a pattern of signs and symptoms, in conjunction with impaired occupational or social functioning.

Symptoms are typically divided into positive and negative symptoms because of their impact on diagnosis and treatment. Positive symptoms are those that appear to reflect an excess or distortion of normal functions. The diagnosis of schizophrenia, according to DSM-IV, requires at least 1-month duration of two or more positive symptoms, unless hallucinations or delusions are especially bizarre, in which case one alone suffices for diagnosis. Negative symptoms are those that appear to reflect a diminution or loss of normal functions. These often persist in the lives of people with schizophrenia during periods of low (or absent) positive symptoms. Negative symptoms are difficult to evaluate because they are not as grossly abnormal as positives ones and may be caused by a variety of other factors as well (e.g., as an adaptation to a persecutory delusion). However, advancements in diagnostic assessment tools are being made.

Diagnosis is complicated by early treatment of schizophrenia’s positive symptoms. Antipsychotic medications, particularly the traditional ones, often produce side effects that closely resemble the negative symptoms of affective flattening and avolition. In addition, other negative symptoms are sometimes present in schizophrenia but not often enough to satisfy diagnostic criteria (DSM-IV): loss of usual interests or pleasures (anhedonia); disturbances of sleep and eating; dysphoric mood (depressed, anxious, irritable, or angry mood); and difficulty concentrating or focusing attention.

Currently, discussion is ongoing within the field regarding the need for a third category of symptoms for diagnosis: disorganized symptoms. Disorganized symptoms include thought disorder, confusion, disorientation, and memory problems. While they are listed by DSM-IV as common in schizophrenia—especially during exacerbations of positive or negative symptoms (DSM-IV)—they do not yet constitute a formal new category of symptoms. Some researchers think that a new category is not warranted because disorganized symptoms may instead reflect an underlying dysfunction common to several psychotic disorders, rather than being unique to schizophrenia.

Answer 4

usually someone who is 14 displays symptoms of being schizoid, not schizophrenic. schizophrenia will sometimes develop later on. i have only read of a few cases of full fledged schizophrenia in younger individuals

Answer 5

the best thing to do would to go on the net and look under schizophrenia symtons, or go to the doctors

i don`t think the symtons from adults and teenagers differs to much

Answer 6

two or more of the following, each present for a significant portion of time during a 1 month period
1) delusions
2) hallucinations
3)disorganized speech
4) grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior
5) negative sypmtoms, ie, affective flattening, alogia, or avolition

Answer 7

some times is normal at that age show some symptoms or problems,because want attention, and you know many times the parents are so busy,the best way to stay on line is exercise and talk whit the parents.

Answer 8

Schizoprenia cannot be diagnosed with a 14 yr old girl.

Answer 9

Schizophrenia DOES NOT happen until one is in their 20's. Until then, you are not likely to know that someone is going to become schizophrenic. Chances are, she has a very creative mind OR is delusional.

mb

Answer 10

tell her parents. They can get her checked out.