Language complexity and age of onset of schizophrenia

Measures of syntactic complexity, derived from the grammatical analysis of free speech samples from schizophrenic subjects, were significantly correlated with age of onset of schizophrenia. A significant correlation remained after controlling for chronological age. These results were independent of duration of illness. The relationship between reduced syntactic complexity and early age of onset of schizophrenia suggests a salient role for language functioning in the manifestation, or even the etiology, of schizophrenia, and adds putative support to previous findings indicating left hemispheric dysfunction in schizophrenia.