Information processing and communication deviance in schizophrenic patients and their mothers.

Tests of attention/information processing, the continuous performance test (CPT) and the span of apprehension task (SAT), were given to 25 schizophrenic patients and their mothers. Measures of communication deviance also were obtained from the mothers. Comparison of these assessments in the mothers revealed different transactional profiles for good attenders and poor attenders on the CPT and on the SAT. The relationships between generations (patient and mother) differ from the within-individual relationships. CPT performance by the patient is not significantly correlated with scores from the mother. However, SAT performance by the patient could be related to SAT performance by the mother and specific communication deviance factor scores.