Social and Cognitive Abilities in Late Childhood

TL;DRAbstract

Consideration of the social and cognitive development of pre-schizophrenic (Pre-S) children should inform and be informed by neurodevelopmental hypotheses of this disorder. These hypotheses take the view that abnormal brain development is determined genetically or occurs in utero (see Kotrla et al. 1997; Pogue-Geile 1997 for reviews). However the abnormality is manifested as schizophrenia only later in the second decade of life or later still. The delay could be explained by the accumulation of adverse experiences that peak in early adulthood, or alternatively maturational changes that trigger the abnormal neural circuits that resulted during development. Kotrla (1997) has suggested that early abnormality will lead to further abnormalities during development (i.e. a cascade process) and that these too are triggered by some critical maturational event in adulthood.

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