Cognition and functional outcome among deaf and hearing people with schizophrenia

Linguistic Ability and Mental Health Outcomes Among Deaf People With Schizophrenia

“…Among deaf people with schizophrenia, cognitionoutcome relations were replicated in the sample employed herein; visuospatial memory was the strongest predictor of functional outcome followed by EVP, vigilance, and word memory (Horton and Silverstein, 2007). In another study, social cognition mediated the cognition-outcome relationship for deaf (and hearing) subjects with schizophrenia (Horton and Silverstein, 2008).…”

“…Equivalent visuospatial memory performance across nonclinical and clinical deaf adults and their hearing peers has been documented alongside reports of superior performance (Eldredge, unpublished doctoral dissertation, 1984;Eldredge and Zhang, 1988;Hauser et al, 2006;Horton and Silverstein, 2007;Parasnis and Kirk, unpublished manuscript, 2004;Spitz and Kegl, unpublished manuscript, 2004).…”

“…Because the task requires the recreation and recall of a geometric figure, it is conceptualized as measuring nonlinguistic (i.e., imagistic/spatial) cognitive ability. The remaining domains comprising the composite cognitive variable are described in Horton and Silverstein, 2007.…”

Cognitive and Neuroplasticity Mechanisms by Which Congenital or Early Blindness May Confer a Protective Effect Against Schizophrenia

“…For example, deafness occurs in schizophrenia at as high a rate as in the general population (Kitson and Fry, 1990), and congenital deafness is a risk factor for the development of psychotic symptoms (Thewissen et al, 2005; Atkinson, 2006), including, interestingly, higher rates of visual and somatic hallucinations than are found in the non-deaf people with schizophrenia (Cutting, 1985), which often co-occur with reports of hearing voices (Du Feu and McKenna, 1999). And, while deafness may be associated with compensatory cognitive changes (see Bross, 1979; Dye and Bavelier, 2010; e.g., heightened attention to visual peripheral cues in people who use sign language; Proksch and Bavelier, 2002), these appear to not protect against schizophrenia, although they may lead to subtle differences in profiles of cognitive impairment between deaf and hearing people with schizophrenia (Horton and Silverstein, 2007, 2011). Moreover, in some cases, compensatory changes may not develop until adulthood (Rettenbach et al, 1999).…”

Factor structure of the BPRS in deaf people with schizophrenia: Correlates to language and thought

“…In addition, among clinical samples, linguistic and nonlinguistic cognitive abilities are differentially associated with functional outcomes for deaf compared to hearing subjects. For example, nonlinguistic-based cognition (e.g., visuospatial processing) appears to be a more potent predictor of outcome for deaf subjects while linguistic-based cognition (e.g., word memory) may be a more potent predictor for hearing subjects (Horton & Silverstein, 2007; Horton, 2010). Associations between nonlinguistic- and linguistic-based cognition and outcome coincide with the respective population’s reliance on visuospatial versus an aural-oral medium in general.…”