Language comprehension and working memory language comprehension and working memory deficits in patients with schizophrenia

The present study examined the hypothesis that patients with schizophrenia have deficits in language comprehension compared to normal controls, and that these deficits are associated with disturbances in working memory (WM). In addition, we hypothesized that language comprehension deficits would be associated with the severity of specific symptoms in the patients (formal thought disorder and hallucinations). Participants were 27 stable outpatients with schizophrenia and 28 demographically similar controls. Language comprehension was measured by presenting sentences auditorily that varied in length and syntactic complexity, followed by two or three comprehension questions. We measured working memory by administering a reading span task. Results indicated that, as predicted, language comprehension deficits were significantly greater in patients with schizophrenia than controls. Also as predicted, working memory was strongly correlated with language comprehension performance in both patients with schizophrenia and controls. Contrary to our predictions, language comprehension and working memory deficits were not associated with either formal thought disorder or hallucinations. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.