CHU Lille, Pôle de psychiatrie, Hôpital Fontan, Lille, France.
AP-HP, DHU PePSY, Pôle de Psychiatrie APHP, Hôpitaux universitaires Henri-Mondor, Créteil, France.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2018 Jan;59(1):68-75. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.12780. Epub 2017 Jul 12.
The prevalence and clinical significance of hallucinatory experiences among children below 7 years of age remain unknown. We aimed to determine the independent influences of sensory deficits, the presence of an imaginary companion and metacognition on hallucinatory experiences. We assumed that hallucinatory experiences were associated with (a) sensory deficits, (b) the presence of an imaginary companion (IC) and (c) metacognition defaults (i.e. first- and second-order theory of mind default).
All children in the third year of preschool from a region of Northern France underwent medical screening. We compared the prevalence rates of visual, auditory and audio-visual hallucinatory experiences based on (a) the presence of visual or auditory deficits, (b) the actual presence of an IC and (c) metacognition. The analyses were adjusted for age.
A total of 1,087 children aged between 5 and 7 years were included. The prevalence rates of auditory, visual and audio-visual hallucinatory experiences were 15.8%, 12.5% and 5.8%, respectively. The prevalences of different types of hallucinatory experiences were not significantly different according to sensory deficit. The prevalences of all types of hallucinatory experiences were significantly higher among children with an IC and among children with metacognition defaults.
The association between hallucinatory experiences and sensory deficits might concern only long-lasting deficits. The association with the presence of an IC confirms experimental findings of the likelihood of perceiving words among meaningless auditory stimuli. Relations between hallucinatory experiences and theory of mind need to be addressed in longitudinal studies.
7 岁以下儿童出现幻觉的患病率和临床意义尚不清楚。我们旨在确定感觉缺陷、想象伙伴的存在和元认知对幻觉体验的独立影响。我们假设幻觉体验与（a）感觉缺陷、（b）想象伙伴（IC）的存在和（c）元认知缺陷（即第一和第二阶心理理论默认）有关。
法国北部地区所有幼儿园 3 岁的儿童都接受了医学筛查。我们根据（a）是否存在视觉或听觉缺陷、（b）实际存在 IC 和（c）元认知来比较视觉、听觉和视听幻觉体验的患病率。分析结果根据年龄进行了调整。
共有 1087 名 5 至 7 岁的儿童参与了本研究。听觉、视觉和视听幻觉体验的患病率分别为 15.8%、12.5%和 5.8%。不同类型幻觉体验的患病率与感觉缺陷无关。有 IC 的儿童和元认知缺陷的儿童出现各种幻觉体验的患病率明显更高。
幻觉体验与感觉缺陷之间的关联可能仅与长期存在的缺陷有关。与 IC 存在的关联证实了在无意义听觉刺激中感知单词的可能性的实验发现。需要在纵向研究中研究幻觉体验与心理理论之间的关系。
