Our own definition of childhood schizophrenia has been a clinical entity, occurring in childhood before the age of eleven years, which "reveals patho… - Lauretta Bender

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Our own definition of childhood schizophrenia has been a clinical entity, occurring in childhood before the age of eleven years, which "reveals pathology in behavior at every level and in every area of integration or patterning within the functioning of the central nervous system, be it vegetative, motor, perceptual, intellectual, emotional, or social. Further more, this behavior pathology disturbs the patterns of every functioning field in a characteristic way. The pathology cannot therefore be thought of as a focal in the architecture of the central nervous system, but rather as striking at the substratum of integrative functioning or biologically patterned behavior" (1) At present the only concept we have of this pathology is in terms of field forces in which temporal rather than spatial factors are emphasized. Within the concept of field forces, one can accept some idea of a focal disorder, since no one integrated function is ever completely lost or inhibited, and since there are different degrees of severity of disturbance in the life history of any child and between two different children. This also differs with the period of onset. The diagnostic criteria for the 100 schizophrenic children which make up this study have been rigid. In each child it has been possible to demonstrate characteristic disturbances in every patterned functioning field of behavior. Every schizophrenic child reacts to the psychosis in a way determined by his own total personality including the infantile experiences and the level of maturation of the personality. This reaction is usually a neurotic one determined by the anxiety stirred up by the disturbing phenomena in the vaso-vegetative, motility, perceptual, and psychological fields. Interferences in normal developmental patterns and regressive phenomena with resulting primitive reactions are related to both the essential psychosis and the reaction of the anxiety-ridden personality. There are, of course, children in whom the differential diagnosis is very difficult. Those with some form of diffuse encephalopathy or diffuse developmental deviations in which the normally strong urges for normal development push the child into frustration and reactive anxiety may present many schizophrenic features in the motility disturbances, intellectual interferences, and psychological reactions.

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About Lauretta Bender

(August 9, 1897 – January 4, 1987) was an American child neuropsychiatrist known for developing the Bender-Gestalt Test in 1938, a psychological test designed to evaluate visual-motor maturation in children that was used widely used for assessing their neurological function and in screening for developmental disorders. She performed research in the areas of autism spectrum disorders in children (formerly "childhood schizophrenia"), suicide and violence, and was one of the first researchers to suggest that mental disorders in children might have a neurological basis, rather than attributing them to the child's bad behavior or poor upbringing.

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Lauretta Bender Parkes Lauretta Bender Schilder

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Additional quotes by Lauretta Bender

Superman represents an instinctive problem that we are all born and grown up with, that we can fly ─ after all, we can fly now; we couldn't before ─ and that we can carry on all kinds of scientific investigations, that we can stop crime, which Superman does, and that we can have a good influence on the world, and that we can be protected by the powerful influences in the world which may be our own parents, or may be the authorities, or what not.

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There is another reason why Superman has had good influence. That is the years of continuity of the Superman character. The children know that Superman will always come out on the right side. On that, I can give you another story about what they wanted to do. At the end of the Second World War we had the problem of a certain number of soldiers coming home as amputees. One of the script writers got the bright idea that we ought to prepare children for their fathers coming home as amputees by having one of the characters─ I don’t think it was Superman ─ one of the others ─ have an accident and lose his leg. They wanted to know what I thought about that idea. I said I thought it was absolutely terrible because I felt that the children loved this character and, after all, how many children were going to have to face the question of an amputee father? Certainly there are far better ways of preparing such children for such a father than to have to shock the whole comic reading children public. So I disapproved of it.

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