Longitudinal analysis of communication deviance in the families of schizophrenic patients.

Considerable research on the family's contribution to the psychopathology and coping of mentally ill offspring has focused on disturbed parental communication patterns, in which parents are unable to share a common focus of attention and meaning with their children. This style of communication has been referred to as communication deviance (CD - Wynne and Singer 1963). Specifically, CD refers to instances in which speakers leave ideas incomplete, use language in an odd manner, use unclear referents, contradict previously made statements with little explanation, or make unintelligible or tangential statements.