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Published on: November 19, 2014
Schizophrenia impairs phonological speech production: a preliminary report
Paul Birkett1, Judy Clegg, Rajinder Bhaker
1Academic Clinical Psychiatry, Department of Neuroscience, University of Sheffield, UK. p.b.birkett@sheffield.ac.uk
Introduction:
Schizophrenia causes clinically conspicuous impairment of syntax and semantics as part of the disorganisation syndrome; however, little is known regarding its effect on the phonological stage of speech, where word meanings are resolved into speech imagery.
Methods:
We used a "tongue-twister" task to probe phonological speech production and its clinical associations in six schizophrenia patients and 16 controls.
Results:
Errors induced by phonological similarity were more common in the patients (p=.003), were positively associated with psychomotor poverty symptoms (p=.02) and negatively associated with reality distortion symptoms (p=.03).
Conclusions:
Our findings suggest that phonological speech production is markedly disrupted by schizophrenia. Further, this phonological abnormality is distinct from disorganisation syndrome.
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