Dissociation Of The Social Perception And Theory Of Mind In High/low Functioning Early Onset Schizophrenia

Objective:To explore the characteristics of the social cognition in patients with high/low functioning early onset schizophrenia(HF-EOS).Methods:84 EOS met with the criteria of ICD-10 for schizophrenia and 45 healthy controls(HC)were matched with gender and age and level of education,they were all 13-18 years old.HF-EOS group(n=41),low functioning early onset schizophrenia(LF-EOS)(n=43)and healthy controls(HC)(n=45)took part in the study.All patients were divided into HF-EOS(total score>7)group and LF-EOS group(total score<4)in the three aspects total score of social attainment,social competence and functional capacity.All patients were assessed with the Eye Basic Emotion Discrimination Task,Reading the Mind in the eyes,Yoni task and Faux Pas Recognition task.Results:Compared with healthy controls,LF-EOS performed poorer on Reading the Mind in the eyes task[(16.90±3.85)vs(18.66±2.98),P<0.05],second-order cognitive condition of the Yoni task[(71.23 ±18.23)vs(83.42 ± 13.90),P<0.01]and Recognizing Faux pas[(7.45±2.32)vs(8.60± 1.52),P<0.05].HF-EOS and LF-EOS performed worse than HC on second-order affective condition of the Yoni task[(80.12 ± 13.56),(75.64±15.23)vs(86.52±10.03),P<0.01]andunderstanding paux pas[(17.43±5.81),(14.50±5.43)vs(20.67±6.33),P<0.01].Conclusion:HF-EOS have preserved social perceptual abilities compared to LF-EOS.Both EOS groups have impaired ToM compared to controls.