Two studies report statistically significant differences in dermatoglyphic patterns between individuals with childhood psychosis and randomly selected controls. Such differences could constitute fairly strong evidence that some factors, genetic or environmental, disrupted the development of these children in utero. In an attempt to confirm these reports, we studied a group of psychotic children using their parents and normal siblings as controls. Our results indicate no differences between the affected children and their relatives. Our ability to detect subtle differences was precluded by the small sample available for analysis.