Computer‐assisted linguistic analysis of two mentally retarded psychotic female's texts

ABSTRACT. Prompted monologues from a schizophrenic and manic mentally handicappedfemale were analysed using a computer program designed to generate 118 syntactic variables. The procedure was repeated after several years. The linguistic profiles and their change over time were characteristic of chronic schizophrenia and mania, respectively: the schizophrenic-illness-based profileshowed further linguistic disintegration; the manic-illness-based profile showed linguistic recovery, mirroring clinical improvement.