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Clinical Psychology and Special Education
2025. Vol. 14, no. 3, 154–165
doi:10.17759/cpse.2025140310
ISSN: 2304-0394 (online)

Autobiographical written narrative as stimulus material for diagnosing speech features in patients with schizophrenia

 
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Abstract

Context and relevance. Despite the high diagnostic value of speech impairments in schizophrenia, objective standards for their assessment have not yet been established. Objectification of it is possible at the level of structural speech characteristics. A structural-psychological analysis of autobiographical texts may be indicative for identifying significant speech features in patients, as autobiographical memory, the retrieval of past experiences, and identity are impaired in individuals with schizophrenia. Objective. To determine the topic of diagnostic stimulus material to allow a greater extent to identify the speech characteristics of patients with schizophrenia. Hypothesis. Autobiographical stimulus material allows to identify specific characteristics of the speech of patients with schizophrenia more effectively than neutral topic speech. Methods and materials. Sample: 86 participants (56 patients with schizophrenia and 30 healthy participants). Methods: biographical (recording and writing autobiographical speech), experimental psychological (recording and writing personally neutral speech), content analysis (examining structural speech characteristics), mathematical statistics (Wilcoxon T-test; Mann–Whitney U-test). Results. Differences between autobiographical and personally neutral texts in patients with schizophrenia partially depend on the stimulus material, except the number of internal predicates, which were significantly higher in written personally neutral speech. When analyzing speech on a personally neutral topic between patients with schizophrenia and healthy individuals, a small number of differences were obtained only for oral speech. Conclusions. Autobiographical stimulus material appears to be diagnostically more valuable for identifying structural speech features and specific impairments in schizophrenia than neutral-topic speech. Autobiographical speech allows us to identify disturbance of the actualization of past experience, emotional-personal disorders.

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Keywords: schizophrenia, language, language disorders, psycholinguistic, psychodiagnostics, autobiographical memory

Journal rubric: Empirical Research

Article type: scientific article

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/cpse.2025140310

Received 01.07.2025

Revised 30.09.2025

Accepted

Published

For citation: Smerchinskaya, E.M. (2025). Autobiographical written narrative as stimulus material for diagnosing speech features in patients with schizophrenia. Clinical Psychology and Special Education, 14(3), 154–165. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.17759/cpse.2025140310

© Smerchinskaya E.M., 2025

License: CC BY-NC 4.0

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Information About the Authors

Elina M. Smerchinskaya, PhD student, Department of Clinical Psychology, The I.P. Pavlov First St. Petersburg State Medical University, St.Petersburg, Russian Federation, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6646-2396, e-mail: fotaroaeko4897@gmail.com

Conflict of interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Ethics statement

The study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of The I.P. Pavlov First St. Petersburg State Medical University (report no. 10/2022, 2022/10/21).

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