Sentence Length of Turkish Patients with Schizophrenia

Abstract

Schizophrenia is a devastating mental disorder that affects thought, language and communication. Considering the language disorders, the aim of this study is to examine the average sentence length of patients with Schizophrenia and compare the results with a control group by using four different language tests. Fifty patients with schizophrenia diagnosed according to DSM-IV criteria have been included in the study and compared to fifty healthy subjects matched for age, sex and education level with the patients. The subjects’ speech has been evaluated in four stages. These are narration, story picture sequencing, semi-structured speech and free speech. The data consists of 8-10 minute recorded interviews. The recordings have been transcribed based on DuBois’ Discourse Transcription Symbols. The statistical and linguistic analyses have shown significant differences between sentence length’s of patients with schizophrenia and control group. Patients with schizophrenia have produced shorter sentences than the control group. In sum, this study concludes that the speech patterns used by Turkish Schizophrenia patients are different in terms of sentence length,and they prefer short and less complicated sentences in communication as a result of their cognitive disorders, including impairment to their attention and abstract thinking abilities.