Childhood schizophrenia is a disorder that is characterized by widespread involvement of some or all of the physiological and psychological processes. Development may be impaired qualitatively by deviation from the norm or quantitatively by retardation or acceleration. Irregularities may appear in a specific child, such as acceleration in one psychological area or in a physiological area in combination with retardation in some other area. So striking is the disorder in development that the nuclear problem in childhood schizophrenia has been termed "dysmaturation."5
Because of these complexities, it would appear to be valuable to select certain areas for intensive study in both the schizophrenic and the normal. One area in which aberrations are frequent and for which there are excellent means of study available would be that of perception. Although disturbances in perception have been noted by many investigators, there is little agreement as to precisely what the deviation