It is defined as childhood onset or early onset schizophrenia when it starts at the age of 13. In this presentation, a male patient who was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 10 was discussed.
Case presentation: A 10-year-old male patient presented to our outpatient clinic with complaints of nervousness, aggression, introversion, and self-talk, which started about 9 months ago. The parents reported observed disorganized behaviour in the form of self-talk and laughter, nightly fears, repetitive conversations and gestures, trusting people, and wanting to kill them, putting his hand in his mouth and butt, going under the table all the time in class. The patient had aphonia, which started three days before he arrived in our outpatient clinic. No organic pathology was found in the neurological examination and his brain MRI exam was unremarkable. No psychiatric history in the family were reported. Parents reported that he started walking in 15 months, and he started speaking when he was 5–6 years old. In his psychiatric examination, distraction of the patient during the interview, incoherence, the blocks of thought, self-talk and laughter, and disorganized behaviour were remarkable. Patient was diagnosed with schizophrenia and olanzapine treatment was started and he was followed regularly. Our case is important in terms of starting at an early age, quick onset of symptoms, and poor functionality. Due to the facts that the age of our patient was young and his parents were not cooperating in the treatment, these affected the clinical prognosis negatively. Treatment guidelines for earlyonset schizophrenia are based on adult literature and clinical experience, and therefore further studies are needed in the child age group for effective treatment.