Patching together a Schizophrenic in High School

How does one prepare to meet and engage someone who is out and about and has been psychiatrically diagnosed as schizophrenic?

I was working as a School Psychologist in a High School in northern New Jersey. A referral had come in to the principal from the parents of a young  male student who was in his junior year at the school. His psychiatrist had recommended supportive counseling on the school grounds. He filled me in on the background before I scheduled the appointment.

I recalled a previous experience with a schizophrenic adult male who sat across my desk but never made eye contact. He had changed the position of his chair so only his profile was visible. I wondered if my student Jeremy  would do anything similar.

When he showed up I noted he was tall, thin and had thick curly blond hair. He had no problem making eye contact. He talked with conviction about being inordinately sensitive. He explained that he could hear people talking across very great distances. He illustrated by pointing out the window of the office to a group of people talking about half a football field away. Distant noises like that were always impinging on him. He frequently felt bombarded with sights and sounds and sensations that were out of his control.

Meanwhile, I noticed what he was doing with his hands. He found a small square box filled with red and white colored blocks. The red color pattern differed on each side of each block. I used them on other occasions as part of a battery of tests. He had removed them from the box, spread the bunch on the desk before him, reached further across the surface of the desk, grasped a scotch tape dispenser and proceeded to tape the previously separate blocks together. They were being unified into a single connected construction.

 Talk about non-verbal unintended communication. How better to reveal a sense of disconnectedness and a yearning to be whole.