Childhood Videotaped Social and Neuromotor Precursors of Schizophrenia: A Prospective Investigation

OBJECTIVE: The authors examined videotaped behaviors of children who developed schizophrenia as adults and of comparison subjects to disclose possible social and neuromotor deficits foreshadowing later development of schizophrenia. METHOD: In 1972, a sample of 265 11–13-year-old Danish children were filmed under standardized conditions while they were eating lunch. The examination was part of a larger study investigating early signs of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Many of the subjects had a parent with schizophrenia, leaving them at high risk for developing a schizophrenia spectrum disorder. In 1991, adult psychiatric outcome data were obtained for 91.3% (N=242). This study systematically analyzed the videotapes to determine whether the children who developed schizophrenia as adults evidenced greater social and/or neuromotor deficits than children who did not develop a psychiatric disorder and children who developed other psychiatric disorders. RESULTS: The findings from this study suggest that the brief videotaped footage of children eating lunch was able to discriminate between the individuals who later developed schizophrenia and those who did not. Specifically, the preschizophrenia children evidenced differences on measures of sociability and general neuromotor functioning (among boys) from the children who developed other psychiatric disorders and the children who did not develop a psychiatric disorder. CONCLUSIONS: Social and neuromotor deficits specific to children who develop schizophrenia in adulthood provide further support for a neurodevelopmental hypothesis of schizophrenia.