A new approach to discourse analysis in psychiatry, applied to a schizophrenic patient's speech

Preliminary study of higher‐order language and extralinguistic impairments in individuals with high clinical risk of psychosis and first episode of schizophrenia

“…However, to be verified, this hypothesis would need longitudinal studies with the same participants converting to schizophrenia. Both the FE and UHR groups demonstrated a poorer understanding of discourse than the HC, which is consistent with previous research with schizophrenia patients (Andreasen et al, 1995;Kuperberg et al, 1998;Noel-Jorand et al, 1997).…”

“…Other studies imply the presence of discourse deficits in schizophrenia patients (Andreasen, Arndt, Alliger, Miller, & Flaum, 1995;McKenna & Oh, 2005), such as shifts from one topic to another without clear links between them, and difficulties in inferring intention and identifying the gist. Other studies have also demonstrated a lack of cohesion in samples of patient speech (Noel-Jorand, Reinert, Giudicelli, & Dassa, 1997), lowered sensitivity to linguistic violations (Kuperberg, McGuire, & David, 1998) and a higher number of errors in decoding communicative intent (Tenyi, Herold, Szili, & Trixler, 2002). Patients with schizophrenia have no difficulties in comprehending prosody in general (Murphy & Cutting, 1990), but problems have been noted with emotional prosody (Edwards, Pattison, Jackson, & Wales, 2001;Ross, Orbelo, Cartwright, et al, 2001).…”

Building coherence: A framework for exploring the breakdown of links across clause boundaries in schizophrenia

“…Findings of impaired use of cohesion markers in schizophrenia speech have been replicated and described in more detail by other researchers (e.g., Docherty, Hawkins, Hoffman, Rakfeldt, & Sledge, 1996; Noel-Jorand, Reinert, Giudicelli, & Dassa, 1997). For example, Docherty and colleagues have developed a comprehensive measure that captures a range of referential communication failures including vague (e.g., “We had to go to court and other bad things” ), confused (e.g., “The supervisor was so jealous because bosses liked me because I was a very good and hard worker, that they didn’t like that, so they plotted against me,” in which “they” could plausibly refer to either “supervisors” or “bosses), and missing (“I designed the American first rockets, and the cars and the boats ;” “They let him /George go, so why not me?” with no prior mention of a specific male person or of a man named George) references.…”

Slow and steady: sustained effects of lexico-semantic associations can mediate referential impairments in schizophrenia

“…Zwaan & Radvansky, 1998). As indicated above, referential impairments in patients with schizophrenia have been well documented (Rochester & Martin, 1979; Docherty, DeRosa, & Andreasen, 1996; Docherty, Strauss, Dinzeo, & St-Hilaire, 2006; Hoffman, Hogben, Smith, & Calhoun, 1985; Noel-Jorand, Reinert, Giudicelli, & Dassa, 1997). These impairments include confused references (e.g., a word or phrase that could refer to one of several possible referents), missing information references (e.g., referring to information that has not been previously mentioned), or vague references (e.g., using a word that lacks specificity) (Docherty et al, 1996; Docherty et al, 2006).…”