1998 |
Docherty, Nancy M. |
R15Activity Code Description: Supports small-scale research projects at educational institutions that provide baccalaureate or advanced degrees for a significant number of the Nation’s research scientists but that have not been major recipients of NIH support. The goals of the program are to (1) support meritorious research, (2) expose students to research, and (3) strengthen the research environment of the institution. Awards provide limited Direct Costs, plus applicable F&A costs, for periods not to exceed 36 months. This activity code uses multi-year funding authority; however, OER approval is NOT needed prior to an IC using this activity code. |
Communication Disturbances in Schizophrenia @ Kent State University At Kent
DESCRIPTION (Adapted from applicant's abstract): The broad, long-term goals of this program of research are to identify the pathophysiological processes underlying schizophrenic disordered speech. The specific goals of the proposed study are (1) to identify communication disturbances in the speech of people with schizophrenia using the Communication Disturbances Index (CDI), a recently developed "natural language" measure that assesses six different types of referential communication disturbances, (2) to test for associations between the different types of communication disturbance and specific neuropsychological deficits, and (3) to assess the stability of each type of communication disturbance over time and across clinical state. In the proposed study three speech samples would be collected over six months from each of 60 schizophrenia outpatients and 40 control subjects. A battery of neuropsychological tests specifically designed to measure facets of working memory, sustained attention, and other areas of cognitive functioning potentially related to communication disturbances also would be administered. Levels of each type of communication disturbance would be compared between groups. Associations between performance on the neuropsychological tests and each type of communication disturbance would be examined within and between groups. The within group analyses would control for differences among subjects in global verbal intelligence and, in the patients, in global severity of illness. The proposed study would attempt to confirm preliminary findings of connections between impairments in working memory and sustained attention, and particular kinds of communication disturbances in schizophrenia. Stability of CDI ratings over time and across clinical state also would be examined, with the expectation that those types of disturbances most highly associated with working memory deficits would be most stable over time and across state. The proposed study could help to elucidate the cognitive underpinnings of particular types of communication failures in schizophrenia. It also could assist in differentiating between "state" vs. "trait" forms of communication impairment, thereby contributing to the effort to discriminate potential vulnerability markers from state-specific episode markers in schizophrenic language symptoms. Undergraduates would be involved in rating the speech samples, scoring and entering the neuropsychological tests, analyzing the data, and reporting the results.
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1999 — 2011 |
Docherty, Nancy M. |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Cognitive Bases of Schizophrenic Language Symptoms @ Kent State University At Kent
A long-term goal of this program of research is to identify pathophysiological processes underlying schizophrenic disordered speech. The heterogeneity of thought and language symptoms has been a problem to investigators in this area. A "natural language" measure has recently been developed that assesses six different types of referential communication failures present in the speech of schizophrenia patients (Communication Disturbances Index (CDI). Preliminary data from stable outpatients suggests that deficits in conceptual sequencing, working memory, and sustained attention underlie some of these forms of disturbance and not others. The proposed study has four specific aims: (1) To replicate findings of elevated frequencies of each of the six different types of referential communication failures measured by the CDI in the speech of severely ill schizophrenia patients; (2) To assess the neuropsychological correlates of specific structure-related types of communication disturbances in severely ill patients in the areas of conceptual sequencing, working memory, and sustained attention; (3) To begin to test whether these associations are specific to schizophrenia, or occur across diagnostic categories; (4) To assess some possible neuropsychological correlates of other, nonstructural types of communication disturbances. Speech samples would be collected from 40 severely ill schizophrenia patients, 40 severely ill mania patients, and 40 matched nonpsychiatric control subjects, and rated using the CDI. Subjects' cognitive functioning also would be assessed in areas hypothesized to be involved in the production of structure-related communication disturbances, with a series of neuropsychological tests specifically designed to measure conceptual sequencing, facets of working memory, low- and high-load sustained attention, and global verbal intelligence. In addition, cognitive functions potentially implicated in nonstructural types of communication disturbances would be assessed. Levels of each type of communication disturbance would be compared between groups. Performance on the cognitive tests would be compared with ratings of the different types of communication disturbances in the speech samples within and between groups, controlling for differences among subjects in global verbal intelligence and severity of illness, to test specific hypotheses about connections between areas of cognitive impairment and particular kinds of language symptoms.
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