Abstract
Recently it has been shown that a single cognitive deficit can explain all the major symptoms of autism (see Frith 1989, for review). In this paper I suggest that the same kind of impairment could account for many of the symptoms of schizophrenia. In addition, the cognitive model proposed is formulated in such a way that we can begin to see how to map the various components onto brain systems. I first present evidence that there are similarities between the symptoms of autism and those of schizophrenia. Clearly schizophrenia and autism belong to different categories in terms of onset — one late, one early. Delusions and hallucinations commonly occur in schizophrenia but are an exclusion criterion for the diagnosis of autism. There are major differences in epidemiological statistics, such as sex ratio, family history and incidence of mental retardation. Nevertheless the term autism was originally coined by Bleuler to characterise a type of social impairment that seemed characteristic of schizophrenia.
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© 1991 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Frith, C.D. (1991). Schizophrenia, Second-Order Representation and the Brain. In: Eggers, C. (eds) Schizophrenia and Youth. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-02684-7_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-02684-7_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-52485-4
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