Paper: Is schizophrenia on the autism spectrum?

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i had quite the paranoid childhood. I thought people read my thoughts, I couldn't enter a room alone without being terrified, I thought aliens were in my room and wouldn't sleep without lights on, wouldn't sleep alone, had to check behind curtains and doors.

I don't think I have schizophrenia though. Schizophrenia (at least the paranoid type) seems to be about putting too much meaning into things. Autism seems to be about not getting the meaning out of things.

Heh. I was really paranoid as a kid, too. Was constantly worried about people being able to read my mind, occasionally checked to see if I'd been warped to an alternate dimension with subtle (but, I was sure, important) differences from my own, and was suspicious that the Yeerks from Animorphs might be real. Though that last one I blame KA Applegate for intentionally planting the idea to sell books. Still a great series.

Considering, though, that I once again outgrew all these beliefs, I'm pretty sure it's not a symptom of schizophrenia.

You know, when I was a kid I thought people could read my mind too. Now that I think of it, I was very much bullied, and the only safety I had was the privacy of my thoughts. But if they could know what I was thinking (nothing evil), they'd bully me about that too. Especially when I was a kid, it was impossible to figure out what other people know and how they know. It was almost inevitable to believe my thoughts were public. I even had a teacher who told me to throw away my fingers (I was fidgeting) and I tried.

About the negative vs. positive symptoms - an additional problem is that, in schizophrenia, the development of the negative symptoms usually precedes the positive symptoms; then, compare a premorbid schizophrenic that, in adolescence begins to develop social isolation, flat affect, avolition, etc. with an Aspie or a PDD/NOS whose social deficits becomes more visible in the beginning of adolescence.

They can be very similar, no? I read somwhere (I don't know if is certain or not) that people with PDD/NOS develop schizoprenia at a relativly high rate. This could be because some types of PDD/NOS are largely identical to premorbid schizophrenia?

I have autism (classic) and schizoaffective disorder. I agree that autism is the negative symptoms and not the positive symptoms of schizophrenia but I have both. I have been diagnosed as having delusions but my hallucinations if you can call it that are very mild compared to what someone with schizophrenia has. I have thought insertion, the belief that someone is inserting thoughts into your head. When under stress and having one of my episodes, my speech gets affected as well. There are times I am incoherent both in writing and in speech. I have sadly posted in word salad before embarrassing myself. Very annoying like my brother. I don't know if my speech problems when stressed (it doesn't happen when I am doing fine, perfectly coherent and no sign of thought disorder) is due to autism or the schizoaffective disorder. Some of my delusions when having a psychotic episode are quite bizarre at times (only while having an episode obviously). One time I believed I was turning into a robot and all metal for example.

Here's an interesting study, showing a high rate of signs of a pre-morbid, undiagnosed ASD in about half the people with schizophrenia:

https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/2077/2 ... 8249_1.pdf

My best friend has a daughter with diagnosed schizophrenia. A few weeks back she was walking through the local shopping centre and froze. She was having an hallucination that the floor and walls had turned into water, and so she was afraid to walk on it. I can't even begin to imagine how scary this was for her

Everyone can be prone to paranoid thoughts now and then, even NT's. But this kind of hallucination is something else altogether, and is definitely not a symptom os Autism. Just because there are a few similarities in the less severe symptoms does not make the two conditions linked.

It is however completely possible to have both conditions simultaneously

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Autistic dad to an autistic boy and loving it - its always fun in our house

I have Autism. My communication difficulties mean that I sometimes get words wrong, that what I mean is not what comes out.

The term autism comes from the dwindling social ability in those who develop Schizophrenia (usually the chronic and now diagnostically defunct simple, types). Bleuler coined it.

Hans and Leo were both very familiar with Bleuler's work.

Apart from the need for the "positive symptoms", there's not too much different between the "negative symptoms" of Schizophrenia and an ASD, other than age of onset. However, the social ability is often worst in those with an ASD (perhaps due to the age of onset of the ASD); functioning tends to be better in Schizophrenia too when the "positive symptoms" are controlled (again, probably due to the age of onset. People with Schizophrenia can have almost normal functioning up until the onset of the full disorder, unlike the person with an ASD).

Alike, but different enough to warrant distinct labels (especially with effective medication being there for the positive symptoms of Schizophrenia).

Dementia is similar to both too.

From the abstract:

Haven't read the entire thread, but I personally have both AS and paranoid schizophrenia. Mine came late-I started hearing "music" when I was about 25, then I was on an antipsychotic for a while that suppressed it, then when I was taken off I started hearing a "radio", noises that gradually got louder until they revealed themselves as "government monitors". When that happened I thought I was being tormented by evil spirits and bought a cross and tried to ward them off that way, but when that didn't work I sought psychiatric help. I take a different antipsychotic now, and I still hear stuff but it's tolerable.