Schizophrenia impairs phonological speech production: a preliminary report.

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.