Childhood schizophrenia: responsiveness to questions during conversation.
OBJECTIVE
This study characterized further the communicative deficits associated with childhood-onset schizophrenia. It examined the use of speech functions that involve responses to Yes/No and Wh- questions in children with schizophrenia and normal children during conversation. It also ascertained the relationship of these speech functions with cognition and thought disorder.


METHODS
Speech function variables, formal thought disorder, and cohesion were coded in 32 schizophrenic and 34 normal children, aged 5.6 to 12.4 years, from speech samples elicited with the Story Game.


RESULTS
The schizophrenic children were significantly more impaired in the use of speech functions than the normal children. Other than the association of a subset of the speech functions with distractibility and loose associations, the speech function measures were unrelated to cognitive and thought disorder measures.


CONCLUSIONS
Speech function analysis detects communication deficits not captured by thought disorder measures in children with schizophrenia.
Abu-Akel
A
A
University of California at Los Angeles, USA. abuakel@hotmail.com
Caplan
R
R
Guthrie
D
D
Komo
S
S
D000367:Age Factors; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D012561:Schizophrenia, Childhood / Q000523:psychology*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D013060:Speech; D013850:Thinking; D014888:Wechsler Scales