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Keeping Jani Alive: The Perils Of Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia Born With Mental Disease?
Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia a Devastating Disorder
RADHA CHITALE/ABC News Medical Unit
July 1, 2009
On a trip to a park near their home in Valencia, Calif., last week, a boy approached Michael Schofield and his six-year-old daughter January, called Jani, to admire their dog, trading stories with Jani about his own dog. Then, without warning, Janihit the boy in the chest. "She hit him in the chest because Wednesday-the-rat told her to," Schofield said. [More...]
20/20 "Haywire" Original Airdate 3/12/10-Full Episode Available online
20/20 followed us and two other families with severely mentally ill young girls for six months from August 2009 to January 2010.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Jani's at the mercy of her mind
Michael and Susan Schofield's 6-year-old daughter is locked in a nightmare realm of schizophrenia -- and no one can help her.
SHARI ROAN/Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
29 June, 2009
It's been a rough week. A few days ago, at UCLA's Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, 6-year-old Jani toppled a food cart and was confined to her room. She slammed her head against the floor, opening a bloody cut that sent her into hysterics. Later, she kicked the hospital therapy dog. Jani normally likes animals. But most of her animal friends -- cats, rats, dogs and birds -- are phantoms that only she can see. January Schofield has schizophrenia. Potent psychiatric drugs -- in doses that would stagger most adults -- seem to skip off her. She is among the rarest of the rare: a child seemingly born mentally ill. [More...]
For Jani Schofield, some progress -- and major setbacks
UPDATE: JANI'S AT THE MERCY OF HER MIND
The 6-year-old, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, doesn't fare well after a change in her environment, and the stress of caring for her takes a severe toll on her family.
SHARI ROAN/Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 09, 2009
On June 29, The Times profiled Jani Schofield, a 6-year-old diagnosed with schizophrenia, and her parents in "Jani's at the mercy of her mind." The article examined Jani's bouts of rage, her make-believe world, and Michael and Susan Schofield's efforts to keep their family together while also safely raising Jani and her toddler brother, Bodhi. Here is an update on the Schofield family. [More...]
SHARI ROAN/Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 29, 2009 update
It was a little more than a year ago that January Schofield, at age 6, began to drift from reality. Suicidal, violent and plagued by hallucinations of rats and cats who conversed and played with her, she began the first of seven psychiatric hospitalizations.
As of today, Jani, 7, has been out of the hospital for 56 days, the longest period in 15 months. Together with her parents, Michael and Susan, and brother, Bodhi, 2, Jani is living a fragile existence... [More...]
The Signal (Santa Clarita's hometown paper)
"Between Worlds" by Melissa Gasca January 16th, 2010
Some of Jani Schofield's friends don't like her little brother, Bodhi.
Sometimes they tell her to hurt Bodhi. And sometimes - even when she doesn't want to - she listens.
If she doesn't, Four Hundred the cat might scratch her, or Wednesday the rat might bite her.
One day, without warning, 7-year-old Jani started to gnaw on the toddler as if to eat him. Tears streaming from her eyes, she repeated, "I'm going to eat you, Bodhi. Bye, bye, Bodhi. I love you." [More...]
Glendale News Press
January 25, 2010
An article on the college interns that did work with Jani.
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