Objective: To examine the diagnostic stability and the functional outcome of patients with early-onset psychosis (EOP) over a 2-year follow-up period. Methods: A total of 24 patients (18 males (75%) and 6 females (25%), mean age [plus or minus] SD: 15.7 [plus or minus] 1.6 years) with a first episode of EOP formed the sample. Psychotic symptoms…

Magnetic resonance imaging was used to study the relation between cortical brain thickness during admission and remission 3 months later in 56 individuals with childhood-onset schizophrenia. Findings revealed that at the time of discharge patients had thicker regional cortex in frontal, temporal and parietal regions thereby indicating that these…

In the 1990s, sociologists began to rethink the failure of utilization models to explain whether and why individuals accessed formal treatment systems. This effort focused on reconceptualizing the underlying assumptions and processes that shaped utilization patterns. While we have built a better understanding of how social networks structure…

Previous research has suggested that a failure in processing contextual information may account for the heterogeneous clinical manifestations and cognitive impairments observed in schizophrenia. In the domain of language, context processing in schizophrenia has been investigated mostly with single-word semantic priming paradigms; however, natural…

This study examined gestalt perception in high-functioning autism (HFA) and its relation to tasks indicative of local visual processing. Data on of gestalt perception, visual illusions (VI), hierarchical letters (HL), Block Design (BD) and the Embedded Figures Test (EFT) were collected in adult males with HFA, schizophrenia, depression and…

This 2012 research report, based on a national online survey conducted by the Canadian Teachers’ Federation (CTF) in collaboration with the Mental Health Commission of Canada, gathers the responses of over 3,900 teachers who voluntarily took part in the survey. Teachers were asked to identify the potential barriers to the provision of mental…

The present study examined rates of co-morbid psychopathology and clinical management/care pathways in adult females (N = 50) and males (N = 100) with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and intellectual disability (ID) living in community settings. We also compared a sub-sample (N = 60) with ASD to an age-, gender- and ID-matched control group (N =…

The current study aimed to compare deictic relational responding and Theory of Mind (ToM) performances in 60 non-clinical young adults with a profile of high versus low social anhedonia in order to investigate a possible link between social anhedonia and ToM functioning. The results indicated that social anhedonic participants were less accurate…

Diagnosing psychotic disorders in young people is difficult. High rates of co-morbidity may be one reason for this difficulty, but it may also be the case that current diagnostic categories are not the most useful when approaching the care of young people with psychotic symptoms. The Northern Ireland Early Onset Psychosis Study is the first study…

It is widely accepted that the brain processes biological and non-biological movements in distinct neural circuits. Biological motion, in contrast to non-biological motion, refers to active movements of living beings. Aim of our experiment was to investigate the mechanisms underlying mental simulation of these two movement types. Subjects had to…

Imaging studies show that in normal language correlated activity between anterior and posterior brain regions increases as the linguistic and semantic content (i.e., from false fonts, letter strings, pseudo words, to words) of stimuli increase. In schizophrenia however, disrupted functional connectivity between frontal and posterior brain regions…

The affective and cognitive abilities of adolescent-onset schizophrenia patients are investigated in relation to cerebral dysfunctions. Findings revealed lower performance sensitivity in verbal n-back task among that patients with AOS. The mutual influence of cognitive and affective symptoms in AOS is analyzed.

The regional gray matter volumes of adolescents with first-episode psychosis are compared with those of a control group. Magnetic resonance imaging was conducted on 70 patients with early onset FEP and on 51 individuals without FEP. Findings revealed that volume deficits in the left medial frontal gray matter were common in individuals with…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate knowledge of students enrolled in an Introductory Psychology class about schizophrenia. Students filled out a questionnaire containing twelve questions on a variety of issues connected to this disorder. The questions were tested in a pilot study using students in a fourth year Psychology course focused on…

Atypical cerebral lateralization in motor and language functions in regard to schizotypal personality traits in healthy populations, as well as among schizophrenic patients, has attracted attention because these traits may represent a risk factor for schizophrenia. Although the relationship between handedness and schizotypal personality has been…