Ask an Autism Researcher
Autistic children ‘hearing voices’
A client with a child with autism reports that her son says that when he kicks and hits it is the voices in his brain telling him to do so. Is the hearing voices connected to autism?
Answer:
There does not appear to be any evidence that hearing voices is a feature of Autism. It is not a diagnostic criterion and doesn’t seem to be a characteristic that occurs as part of the spectrum. However it is not impossible that Autistic children, just like non-autistic children, can develop mental health conditions such at obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia, and other health conditions, where hearing voices is a frequent characteristic. There is some evidence that schizophrenia sometimes occurs with Autism in children.
Child-onset schizophrenia (onset before 13 years) shares some clinical features with Autism, such as social and communication difficulties, poor eye contact, language difficulties, anxiety, but there are also distinct features of the two conditions. There is also some emerging evidence that the two disorders share common genetic characteristics.
By Dr Elfriede Ihsen
Links
‘Autism and Schizophrenia’, By Yael Dvir, MD and Jean A. Frazier, MD in the Psychiatric Times , March 15, 2011
4 COMMENTS
My little one is 7 and has asd OCD ADHD mv and she is hearing voices all the time
I don’t no where to go to look for help she has a very hare time going to school or making friends and keeping them any help would be great thank you all.
I’m 17 and recently diagnosed with ASD (literally writing this Febuary 2017, got the diagnosis in July 2016) and within the last month, I’ve started to hear this voice in my head. It has popped up in the past, staying fot maybe a day or two and then disappearing. But this time it’s staying. I keep forgetting nobody else can hear it and it is literally like a whole other person. I’m an introverted teenaged girl and this voice, which calls itself Konor, is an extroverted boy. Sometimes he makes me say things I’m thinking out loud and it’s got me in a lot of trouble. Please, I need help. This is going to drive me insane if nothing is done. It’s like I’m being torn in two seperate directions and I can’t tell my mother as she believes mental health problems are (and I quote) “cries for attention”.
Please, help me.
Hi,
My 13 yr old daughter just recently diagnosed has voices she hears as well as shadow people. She was admitted in child psych unit for 4 weeks for observation. The detetmined her voices and people were attributed to her high anxiety and not schizophrenia. She knows no one else can see or hear them….schizophrenic psychosis relies on tbe person being unable to distinguish it from reality…believes everyone can see/hear them. I am hoping with your recent diagnosis that you have a psychiatrist or psycologist…they are a good place to start. Unfortunately some people including parents cannot fathom the complexity of the brain. My daughters voices get worse when stressed.
I was diagnosed as a Kanner baby ( Kanner Disorder at 6 months and confirmed at 2 years of age I came to find out from my mom… I was then re diagnosed at 33 I thought ADHD/MD… But come to find out Autistic/Schizoeffective… There familiar like my kids or unfamiliar but not bad like as a child… My daughter and son are experiencing the same… But my daughter thinks she’s had a conversation with someone but hasn’t like myself…. She was confirmed Autistic with the ADOS and by another psychiatrist Schizoeffective after umpteen suicide uttempts in 9 months and every kind of medication she is on Haldol and it seems to be working great… We have Four people with Schizophrenia in are family 2 from my moms side and 2from my dads side… My cousin and brother you would sware they were Autistic… We all were ADOS confirmed so I am confused
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