New research suggests capable working memory of schizophrenics

 

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Carol Forsloff - Research on schizophrenics indicateS their working memories may on average be just as good as those without schizophrenia, and raises the question if this is true of schizophrenia would it also be true of autistic children given associations found between both disorders.  

Schizophrenia and autism in 2009 looked at the issue of both of these disorders as having common origins.  Hypotheses about both are tested on an ongoing basis, as the driving need is to determine what actually causes both autism and schizophrenia so that prevention efforts can be undertaken along with finding new ways of managing and caring for people with these conditions. 

Years ago autism was referred to as childhood schizophrenia. That’s because the children seemed to live in their own worlds, develop their own speech, retreat from what folks said was normal reality, and sometimes couldn’t speak at all. 

During the 1960’s, when students were educated to work with autistic children, the literature in the field stressed that autistic children were the result of a profile of a cold, distant, educated mother, someone who didn’t bond appropriately with the child. This was during the same years, that people who had schizophrenia were thought to have language and thought disorders from some base related to family patterns and parenting. 

The link between autism and schizophrenia then was narrated as of a different kind than the one discussed in present literature and in the psychoanalytic category of study and treatment.

A Dutch researcher by the name of Annemie Ploeger reviewed the extensive literature on autism and schizophrenia and demonstrated during her study that both schizophrenia and autism have certain common threads. She found, for example, that both diseases have a pattern of physical abnormalities that often occur during the first month of pregnancy. The toes of both schizophrenics and autistics are unique. But there are differences as well including the fact that autistics often have large heads and intestinal problems. Ploeger concludes that in the pregnancy disorders develop into autism in one person and schizophrenia in another. 

Vulnerability to autism or schizophrenia occurs, according to the present research, during the early days following the fertilization of the egg when the embryo is particularly fragile. If something goes wrong during that period it can influence the development.

Ploeger's research reveals that in the period between 20 and 40 days after fertilization, the embryo is highly susceptible to disruptions. In this period, early organogenesis, there is a lot of interaction between the different parts of the body. If something goes wrong with a given part of the body, it greatly influences the development of other parts of the body. Ploeger concluded that the foundation for these psychiatric disorders is laid very early during pregnancy. She also underlines the importance of women who are pregnant avoid certain behaviors during the early period to include smoking, use of certain drugs and stressful activities.

Another study of mental illnesses among parents again shows a link between autism and schizophrenia. It found that parental psychiatric disorders have been associated with autism in their offspring. The study is detailed in the May Journal of Pediatrics. In Sweden children who were diagnosed with autism before the age of 10 were matched with a control population. Then the parents of both groups of children were examined. The research concludes that for both parents schizophrenia is associated with autism. 

This recent study hearkens back to the early research by Bruno Bettelheim and his analyses of both the conditions of autism and schizophrenia and his determination about cold, distant mothers. His was a psychoanalytic analysis and conclusion that resulted in therapy for the mothers to help them with parenting as well as the training and education of the child.

Bettelheim’s research was very controversial in that, according to some, it created guilt and blame on the mother and blamed parenting, which created a barrier for real treatment of the child. This created discussion among professionals at the time of his research and continues to be with the present research.

Researchers of both autism and schizophrenia maintain ongoing research to be valuable that finds areas where there is normalcy, such as working memory function, bringing hope to areas that would otherwise appear bleak and final.