Childhood and adolescent psychosis: a review of the past 10 years.

OBJECTIVE

Developmental aspects of psychosis are reviewed and related to the more frequent psychotic conditions in children and adolescents.

METHOD

The review of the recent literature focuses on developmental aspects of psychotic phenomena, i.e., hallucinations, delusions, and thought disorder.

RESULTS

While the applicability of much early work on this topic is limited, more recent work suggests that psychotic conditions are observed in childhood and increase in frequency during adolescence.

CONCLUSIONS

Developmental factors in the expression of psychosis are relevant to the diagnosis and treatment of such conditions.