Early Anomalies of Continuity in Speech are Predictive Biomarkers of Psychosis

Language is being systematized as an area of clinical research because it contains features that function as a biomarker for the prediction of psychosis. The aim of the study was to contrast two types of continuity features such as connection, iteration, and referential distance, and, on the other hand, those of verbal fluency, understood as the presence of aberrant pauses. Clinical interviews of 10 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, 10 CHR and 10 healthy controls were analyzed. For the analysis of referentiality, sentence windows were selected and for verbal fluency, 15 minutes of speech were considered. The results suggest the presence of abnormalities in referentiality and verbal fluency among the CHR population. These similarities are found in terms of occurrence and similarity to those of the schizophrenia group, which supports our hypothesis that they are predictive biomarkers.