The present research is concerned with the developmental precursors of schizophrenia. It utilizes a novel methodology that will facilitate the study of premorbid factors at a detailed level of analysis that has not been possible with previous approaches. Childhood home movies and developmental information will serve as the data base for the study of early behavioral phenomena in individuals diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia in adulthood. There will be three comparison groups: Healthy siblings of patients, patients suffering from affective disorders, and subjects from families with no mental illness. The first phase of this research program will use the home movies to study molar behavioral characteristics of the subjects at 1 to 2 years of age and to develop rating scales for examining the molecular aspects of neuromotor, attentional and socioemotional functions. Based upon past findings and current theoretical models, it is predicted that constitutional vulnerability to schizophrenia will be manifested in infancy on the molar behavioral level as well as in specific functional domains. On the molar level, it is predicted that preschizophrenic children will show decreased levels of communicative and motor behavior when compared to control subjects. The methodology of the present study holds promise for addressing many other questions that are of critical relevance to our understanding of the etiology of schizophrenia. The rating scales devised in the first phase of the research program will be used in subsequent work to examine the development of neuromotor, attentional and socioemotional functions. This will permit molecular analyses of these functional domains across childhood and will provide data for determining: 1) the earliest period at which deviations are apparent in the developmental trajectory of schizophrenia, 2) the extent to which the development of schizophrenic and affective patients is distinguishable, 3) the sequence of emergence of developmental deviations in the three domains, and 4) the relation between early developmental factors and the later clinical course of the disorder.
