what the difference between autism and schizophrenia

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And psychosis In as much detail as possible

The most important differences between autism and schizophrenia:

- Autism has its onset in childhood. Schizophrenia usually starts in early adulthood.
- Schizophrenia has "positive" symptoms like delusions and hallucinations that are not present in autism.
- Autism is generally characterised by an impaired ability to socialise, but not necessarily a decrease in motivation. Schizophrenia sees a large drop in motivation, but not necessarily ability.

Psychosis is a pathological disconnect with reality - not ordinary things like seeing patterns that aren't there or making mistakes, but delusions and hallucinations and catatonia. It has no relationship with autism, but schizophrenic people usually have at least a degree of psychosis.

I can't speak with any authority, so I'm perhaps being more cautious than necessary.

The key difference is hallucinations and delusions.

Hallucinations are distortions of reality (seeing things, hearing things, feeling things, smelling things, tasting things that are not real). A person with untreated schizophrenia will experience things that exist only in their heads, not in the outside world.

Delusions are strongly held beliefs that no one else believes, and there is no proof of. For example, you might be convinced that you have cancer but no medical tests can find any cancer in your body. You might think that people are placing thoughts in your mind. You might come up with a story that seems real to you but never happened. You might get paranoid, thinking that people are plotting against you.

Hallucinations and delusions are not a part of an autism diagnosis. Being diagnosed with autism does not necessarily rule out being diagnosed with schizophrenia.

In both autism and schizophrenia, the afflicted individuals are, usually, far removed from reality.

The difference lies in the fact that an autistic individual is trapped in their own mind. The difficulty they experience in communicating and relating to others leads to difficulties in staying attuned to what’s happening around them.

A schizophrenic person has delusions and hallucinations which presents to them a distorted view of reality. An autistic person does not suffer from any delusions or hallucinations but are merely too caught up in their own mind to be able to assess their environment objectively.

No human being can assess their environment objectively. Subjectivity is part of the package.

Also, your assessment of autism is way off base. Autistic people are not generally disconnected from reality, nor are we trapped in our own minds, and it's a weird decades old attitude that promotes that as the definition of autism. The same definition that contributed to autism being classified as childhood schizophrenia.

People with schizophrenia do not all experience both delusions and hallucinations. They also experience something called "formal thought disorder" which is considered a positive symptom. Autistic people may experience something like formal thought disorder as well, although it may be for different reasons.

Also, someone experiencing psychosis may be distanced from reality in some ways, but still able to focus on reality in other ways. Just painting them as "far removed from reality" erases the diversity and reality that many people with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and other psychotic disorders live with. I would go so far as to say that describing people as being "far removed from reality" is really a terrible and ignorant way to discuss mental illness or developmental disabilities.

Although I believe a schizophrenia diagnosis makes autism diagnosis very difficult.

Could you explain thought disorder a bit more?

It's disorganized thinking and speech. You don't think or speak as most expect - you might constantly change the subject (tangentiality) or use rhyming words (clanging), become about 90% mute (alogia), or repeat other people (echolalia). There are several more listed at this link: Formal thought disorder at wikipedia.

It lists several kinds of thought disorder. I've been described as showing the signs of two (circumstantiality and tangentiality) depending on how much stress I'm under, whether anyone I'm talking to can keep me focused, or whether I can keep myself focused.

In schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders, it is a likely cause of not making a lot of sense in speech or writing.

I am a sociologist researching autism.

Schizophrenia = I don't research this so I don't know any more than a layperson.

Asperger's= No developmental delay in childhood, may pass as "neurotypical" or not-autistic, strong focus on special interests.

High-functioning autism=Same as Asperger's, but with a developmental delay in childhood. For example, a person might start learning to speak, stop communicating for awhile, then just start again, often at a high level. These people can also often pass as non-autistic.

Middle and lower-functioning autism or "mid- to lower-spectrum"= Significant communication differences and significantly different sensitivity levels as compared to non-autistics. People that are this "out of sync" with neurotypicals/non-autistics often score in a lower-intelligence range on tests and may need help with daily functioning-enough to be partially or fully dependent on someone else.

Actual intelligence has nothing to do with where you really are on the spectrum. It just means you're good or bad at taking the test. And people may be classified as having Asperger's or high-functioning autism when they need a lot of help. For example, a person may be able to work and be married but cannot use the phone or drive. And some people get "smarter" when they memorize answers for an intelligence test.

People with schizophrenia have hallucinations and delusions. These are not the same as imagining things that you know aren't real and have control over. The hallucinations and delusions people with schizophrenia have are very real to them and they aren't able to control them.

Most people think schizophrenia gives you multiple personalities, but it doesn't. In fact it can rob you of your personality. Also, unlike Autism, schizophrenia is a real illness. People who have it are really no less ill than someone with asthma or diabetes, except it that isn't fatal, although untreated people may commit suicide because "voices" told them or because they just couldn't endure the symptoms any longer.

Hollywood and the media love to make people with schizophrenia appear to always be criminally dangerous lunatics bent on killing people, but most of them are no more dangerous than anyone else. In fact they are more likely to become victims of violence.

Like people with Autism people with schizophrenia may have poor social skills, but this is mainly because of their delusions, hallucinations or paranoia. people with Autism may have unusual interests that make them appear to have schizophrenia, but it's not the same. Most people with schizophrenia start to develop symptoms when they're young adults, although rarely small children or older adults may have it. Autisim is a lifelong "condition". Schizophrenia can be treated and controlled with medication, but medications only really control the anxiety, depression or sleep problems people with Autism may get from just coping with the outside world's rigid, narrow-minded beliefs rather than what's in their head.

It might be interesting to list the similarities between autism and schizophrenia / psychosis. I can't find any.