STUDIES OF VISUAL INFORMATION-PROCESSING IN SCHIZOPHRENIC CHILDREN

Children (11) meeting DSM III [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders III] criteria for schizophrenia (mean age .apprx. 12 yr), a group of normal children matched in mean mental age to the schizophrenic children and a group of younger normal children (mean age 6.6 yr) were administered a series of visual information-processing tasks to isolate core information-processing impairments in childhood onset schizophrenia. In experiment 1, the schizophrenic children showed impairment relative to the MA[mental age]-matched normals and performed at the level of the younger normal children on a forced-choice partial-report version of the span-of-apprehension task. This task is sensitive to dysfunction in both actively and partially recovered schizophrenic adults as well as a subset of foster children at risk for schizophrenia. Experiment 2 delimited the source of the information-processing impairment in schizophrenic children by ruling out a number of possible causes of impairment and suggesting that schizophrenic children use the same information-acquisition strategies as MA-matched children but less efficiently. Experiment 3 revealed that, consistent with the previous research, the schizophrenic children were comparable with the MA-matched controls on a full-report span-of-apprehension task that placed heavy demands on iconic and short-term memory. Both the schizophrenic and MA-matched normals performed significantly better than the younger normal children. Apparently, all groups of children engaged in a serial information-processing strategy while performing on the partial-report version of the span-of-apprehension task. The differential impairment of the schizophrenic children on the partial-report versions but not the full-report version of the span-of-apprehension task may reflect inefficiencies in controlled attentional processes that normally develop during middle childhood.