A history of childhood schizophrenia and lessons for autism
This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. one author of this publication is identified as autistic in the project.
About the autistic author markerFellowes, S. (2024). A history of childhood schizophrenia and lessons for autism. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 46(3), 29-29. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-024-00627-5
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Authors
Abstract
Abstract The diagnosis of childhood schizophrenia was widely employed in the U.S. from the 1930s to the late 1970s. In this paper I will provide a history of the diagnosis. Some of the earliest publications on childhood schizophrenia outlined the notion that childhood schizophrenia had different types. I will outline the development of these types, outlining differing symptoms and causes associated with various types. I outline how different types of childhood schizophrenia were demarcated from one another primarily on age of onset and the type of psychosis which was believed to be present. I will outline how various child psychiatrists viewed the types of childhood schizophrenia posited by other child psychiatrists. I will outline the process of abandoning childhood schizophrenia. I use my history to challenge what I believe are misconceptions about childhood schizophrenia. Also, I will use my history to draw lessons for thinking about modern notions of autism. It shows potential problems around formulating psychiatric diagnoses around causes and how compromises might be needed to prevent those problems. Additionally, childhood schizophrenia shows that psychiatrists could formulate subtypes that are not based upon functioning levels and that we can conceive of subtypes as dynamic whereby someone can change which subtype they exhibit over time.
Bibliography cited by this reference
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Cited bibliography overview
These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 19 Sep 2026 01:01.
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- References with detected author names
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- Without a stable identifier
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- References with raw author names still to review
- 8
- References with external metadata lookup issues
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- From validated raw bibliography text
- 0
- Raw names already validated
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