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Formal Thought Disorder, the Type-Token Ratio, and Disturbed Voluntary Motor Movement in Schizophrenia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Theo C. Manschreck ,
Brendan A. Maher  and
Deborah N. Ader
Theo C. Manschreck
Affiliation:
Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Fruit Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, U.S.A
Brendan A. Maher
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Social Relations, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Deborah N. Ader
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital
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Summary

Little work has been done to determine objective, reliable differences in formal characteristics of the actual utterances of thought-disordered and non-thought-disordered subjects. The type-token ratio (TTR), a quantitative measure of repetition in language, correlated highly with clinical judgments of thought disorder when spoken language was examined, and statistically differentiated thought-disordered from non-thought-disordered schizophrenics and psychiatric and normal controls. Elicited and spontaneous motor abnormalities were associated with reduced TTRs both in schizophrenics and in affective subjects with motor disturbance. The TTR is a reliable, objective indicator of language deviance and thought disorder, and strongly associated with motor disturbances.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 139 , Issue 1 , July 1981 , pp. 7 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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