A developmental approach to delineate components of cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia.
Two developmentally based tests were devised to study the nature of schizophrenic cognitive dysfunction within a psychopharmacolgical framework and to relate the data to developmental and psychophysiological models. The Colour-Form Preference Test was designed to evaluate cognitive style in terms of early maturational stages and provided a subscale for assessing arousal-related cognitive growth. The Egocentricity of Thought Test, adapted from Piaget's developmental study of right-left positional concepts, enabled investigation in terms of the later stages of cognitive growth. These and other clinical measures were taken of schizophrenic patients at various points of treatment and also administered to a non-psychotic comparison group. Test results supported their validity, reliability, longitudinal sensitivity and capacity for nosological and prognostic discriminations. The data also suggested a distinction between two components of schizophrenic cognitive dysfunction -- one drug-sensitive, which could be considered as arousal-related, and the other drug-resistant, which might best be described as developmental. A two-factor model encompassing the psychophysiological and developmental hypotheses is thus offered as a more comprehensive representation of the cognitive disorder.
D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003071:Cognition; D003221:Confusion; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011379:Prognosis; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics; D012563:Schizophrenia, Paranoid / Q000175:diagnosis; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology