Possible defects of interhemispheric integration in children of schizophrenics.

The discovery of abnormalities of hemisphere function in schizophrenic patients directs attention toward possible developmental precursors in children at high risk for schizophrenia. In this preliminary investigation, monaural and binaural speech comprehension were studied in 13 children of schizophrenic parents and 13 normal schoolchildren matched for age, sex, and verbal intelligence. Like the adult schizophrenics tested previously, the high risk children showed deficits in binaural relative to monaural comprehension, impaired overall speech comprehension, and deficient speech sounds perception compared with the controls. The results may reflect abnormal interhemispheric integration in the high risk children, in whom the development of hemispheric specialization for language may also be affected.