Is there anything about the way schizophrenia is (or used to be) diagnosed that would make it harder for the congenitally blind to get diagnosed? I ask because I know someone, completely deaf from birth (and who only learned sign language as an adult, not sure if that makes a relevant difference in terms of language processing), who for a long time couldn’t get treatment for (and never got a formal diagnosis of) schizophrenia on account of a lack of auditory hallucinations or hearing voices.
Thanks! Yeah, I’m not an expert, but if God / Omega told me with absolute certainty that there were somewhat fewer documented congenitally-blind schizophrenics than expected, I would definitely start brainstorming explanations like “Maybe schizophrenia presents a bit differently in congenitally-blind people, making it hard to diagnose?” or “Maybe blind schizophrenics are less likely to wind up seeing a psychiatrist for some reason?” or things like that.
I don’t think those kinds of things would amount to an orders-of-magnitude reduction in documented congenitally-blind schizophrenics. But if we’re trying to explain a 50% reduction or whatever, sure, seems possible.
The thing is, I don’t think anybody is claiming that we’re trying to explain a 50% reduction (?). These people seem to be saying that there are orders of magnitude fewer congenitally-blind schizophrenics than expected. Whereas my tentative read of the evidence is: “There could be anything from 10× fewer to 3× more congenitally-blind schizophrenics than expected from chance.”, i.e. there might not be any reduction to explain in the first place.
Is there anything about the way schizophrenia is (or used to be) diagnosed that would make it harder for the congenitally blind to get diagnosed? I ask because I know someone, completely deaf from birth (and who only learned sign language as an adult, not sure if that makes a relevant difference in terms of language processing), who for a long time couldn’t get treatment for (and never got a formal diagnosis of) schizophrenia on account of a lack of auditory hallucinations or hearing voices.
Thanks! Yeah, I’m not an expert, but if God / Omega told me with absolute certainty that there were somewhat fewer documented congenitally-blind schizophrenics than expected, I would definitely start brainstorming explanations like “Maybe schizophrenia presents a bit differently in congenitally-blind people, making it hard to diagnose?” or “Maybe blind schizophrenics are less likely to wind up seeing a psychiatrist for some reason?” or things like that.
I don’t think those kinds of things would amount to an orders-of-magnitude reduction in documented congenitally-blind schizophrenics. But if we’re trying to explain a 50% reduction or whatever, sure, seems possible.
The thing is, I don’t think anybody is claiming that we’re trying to explain a 50% reduction (?). These people seem to be saying that there are orders of magnitude fewer congenitally-blind schizophrenics than expected. Whereas my tentative read of the evidence is: “There could be anything from 10× fewer to 3× more congenitally-blind schizophrenics than expected from chance.”, i.e. there might not be any reduction to explain in the first place.