Schizophrenia Daily News Blog

IQ Stable After Child-Onset Schizophrenia

In the rare cases in which one develops schizophrenia at an early age, it has been asked: how does this affects one IQ? Surprisingly, a recent study has found that one's IQ and cognitive function are for the most part, steadfast in their original course. This stability remains for the first 13 years after being diganosed with child-onset schizophrenia, even when the case is chronic or any loss in the brain's grey matter.

"As found in adult patients with schizophrenia, the usual positive relationship between brain volume and IQ seen in normal controls no longer appears to exist for our childhood-onset schizophrenia patients possibly due to compensatory mechanisms in response to early damage," they add. To examine the long-term IQ trajectory for childhood-onset schizophrenia, the team used age-appropriate Wechsler intelligence tests and the Full Scale Intelligence Quotient (FSIQ), administered at 2-year intervals over an 8-year period, to measure IQ levels in 70 children with schizophrenia on admission to the NIH" (PsychiatrySource.com, 2005).

The participants in the study were thirty-one children 6 to 18 years old and all of them had developed schizophrenia hefore they had turned 13. The IQ data for them prior to their first episode of psychosis was only available for 18 of them. After psychosis there appeared to be a rapid decline in IQ that eventually leveled out over the long term. This difference in child-onset schizophrenia should be noted for future research studies on the potential repairs made to a younger mind that are not as common in adults.

Original Source: IQ remains stable following childhood-onset schizophrenia. PsychiatrySource.com. August 19, 2005.

This research study was originally titled: IQ stabilization in childhood-onset schizophrenia. It is published in Schizophr Res 2005; 77: 271–277.