Social Skills Training with Relapsing Schizophrenics

Abstract

A social skills training procedure was developed to strengthen the communication and community survival skills of schizophrenics who were at risk for relapse. To evaluate the effectiveness often weeks of daily social skills training with three chronic schizophrenic patients a multiple baseline design was used across three different behavioral domains, with antipsychotic medication kept constant. Improvements in the patient's performance in each of the three areas of interpersonal activity occurred as a temporal function of the introduction of the training. Additional evidence for the effect of the training came from analyses of nonverbal components of assertiveness rated "blindly" from videotapes of role-played situations. All patients showed statistically significant improvements in their conversational skills in naturalistic, untrained situations around the hospital. Nurses' ratings of ward behavior and parents' ratings showed improvements for two of the three patients.