Is it just me or does this girl seem more AS or schizophreic

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2NWAZJy ... re=related

A lot of the comments say she appears more AS than schizophrenic. She reminded me a lot of myself when I was her age. I did have a stupid phycologist who said I might be delisional and phycotic but really it was just an issue with "theroy of mind". I think the doctor is conning the parents.

Dr. Attwood has said that back in the day when ASDs were less recognizable many ASD patients were mis-diagnosed with schizophrenia, because doctors mistook the symptoms of Theory of Mind with that of schizophrenia.

She does. The stimming is very autistic-style, for one thing. She never makes eye contact. She doesn't have back-and-forth conversations; just answers questions. Her tone of voice and inflection seem quite typical, though. At seven, it seems like it's difficult to tell whether she's having true hallucinations or whether she's having trouble interpreting the world, period... It's as though she can't figure out whether her thoughts are coming from her own mind or not. The hyperactivity/shutdown thing looks like she's trying to keep herself engaged, then shutting down when she can't manage it.

The biggest thing I noticed, though, is that she is not happy about being interviewed, and she's not afraid to avoid it. Repeatedly she says she doesn't want to talk. I think she knows very well that Oprah's trying to make a spectacle of her. Trying, for that matter, to make a spectacle of the fact that she doesn't want to talk to Oprah, because obviously this is Not a Normal Thing. Later on she says "I know that was the disease"... No. I don't think it was. I think she didn't want to talk, and I don't blame her.

Really, she seems to me to be simply a little girl who has trouble with managing her own activity level and figuring out her world. She's just this little girl, and everybody else is talking about what a tragedy, what a burden, etc. I just hope she never picks up on that, though I guess she probably already has.

We used to have freak shows. Now we have Oprah.

Oprah is the last person I would want to help my child. I really cant stand her. Poor girl had no choice but be subjected to her and tried to get away, bless her heart!

I had imaginary friends like that but I'd talk to them in my head, because I never spoke to people like that. I'd only speak when I wanted something.
For me imaginary friends were my only friends. It was like it was a way to cope without having friends.
I wonder if giving the girl an actual pet might make her hallucinations stop or lessen? When I was little it was dogs. We always had cats but I wanted nothing more than a dog and since my dog was taken to the pound I start seeing dogs at random times. Actually it can help to cope with stress.
I do have auditory and visual hallucinations, or it just be my imagination. I can ignore them though. It probably is just my overactive imagination.

I like it how her friends were days of the week or like '24 hours' and '100 degrees'. That's a good way to learn and remember things.

Autism is a lot like Schizophrenia - where schizophrenics have hallucinations of voices, visions and the sort, autistics have, what might be possibly described as hallucinations in proprioception (sense of self in space), temproception (sense of time) and other less known senses. With schizophrenia severe enough, it can appear like autism necessitating similar behaviours. In fact, I bet the common hallucination that both schizophrenics and autistics have is nociception (sense of pain).

Just a guess though.

It looked more schizophrenic to me than autism. Her imaginary friends were real to her and they told her to do things which is common in schizophrenics. She actually sees them and they tell her to do things.

I don´t like Oprah or exposing kids with disabilities on tv but I thought the video was informative. The parents seemed supportive of the little girl and complained about the lack of services available which is important IMO. I just think that the parents should have sent her to early childhood intervention when they noticed that there was something strange with her. I also agree with League_Girl and think it looked like more schizophrenic for the same reasons she mentioned although I´m not an expert.

Last edited by Wedge on 26 Apr 2010, 6:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think that Oprah needs to get a life. Dr. Phil is just as bad.

I had "imaginary" friends when i was little. Did anyone notice that the girl got violent when she got a baby brother? Personaly I had issues when there was a new baby in the family (im an only child) and i can remember acting out when the attention wasnt focused on me. She could be noticing that when she acts out her parents pay more attention to her. Another thing is her parents and Oprah keep saying about her being different and the parents "knowing" from the begining that something was off. She could be hearing this and acting the way they expect. She seems more autistic but I really don't know.

Isn't it very rare (if ever?) for schizophrenia to start so young? And is possible that the doctors just look over autism/AS because she's a girl?

(Disclaimer: I didn't watch the whole show. But how many pills a day do we think she might be on?)

Edited to add: Yup, she's on lithium and clozapine. At 7 years old. That's the real travesty here.

I agree that she seems autistic- especially when the parents were describing the early days when she was an infant. Seriously- a 3 month old schizophrenic? I also agree with Callista's comments about the "hallucinations." Or maybe she is autistic and also has hallucinations.

I can't believe Oprah's comment that she has never had an interview like that before. I thought she had done quite a bit with autistic kids. She's seriously never met an autistic kid who acted like that before? And I thought her interaction style with the kid as well as the little comments she kept making about the girl's refusal to go along with the interview to be extremely obnoxious.

Additionally, I also demanded to be called by another name for a little while when I was two- that seriously worried her parents so much? My parents were just amused by it. I also had multiple imaginary friends.

Samara- I also noticed that the age she started to become violent coincided with the arrival of a baby brother.

I did that too until I was five or six. When asked who I was I would say the name of the character I was pretending to be. I also would get bored and change who I pretended to be and would have a meldown if someone called me the name of the character I was previously. I thought they knew I had changed my mind. Simple theroy of mind but my parents think I was exhbiting delusional behavior. Silly parents.

I personaly think the phycatrist is conning the parents into believing she is schisofrenic so he can make more money by posioning her or that he is simply an idot or both.

The way she's either hyperactive or out of it reminds me of the way I used to fight through the meds they gave me. I'd either be pulling everything together to think straight for a while, or else just zonked.

There's no telling whether it's the meds or whatever she's got underneath, though.

This also is my opinion, for what it is worth. I am shocked that kids this age can get schizophrenia, though. I read that autism used to be misdiagnosed as childhood schizophrenia.

I could not watch the whole video. I hate Oprah and the constant cuts were making my head spin. I also could not stand watching Oprah pursue this girl to continue the interview. Why not have the parents on the show and show clips of home video. I just could never subject my daughter to that sort of thing. I would expect some sort of meltdown.

She has the same hand stims I do. I watched this a while back and questioned if she were autistic.