Replacing a chronic schizophrenic man's delusional speech with stimulus appropriate responses

This study attempted to extend the use of Cues, Pause, Point language training procedures (developed to treat the speech disorders of mentally handicapped persons) to delusional speech. The direct and potential generalized effects of the procedures on the delusional and socially appropriate responding of an institutionalized, chronic schizophrenic man were evaluated in a multiple baseline design across stimulus-response pairs. The procedures encouraged the subject to (a) remain quiet before, during, and after the presentation of verbal stimuli and then (b) respond on the basis of environmental cues (i.e. written word cards) that contained the correct responses. Delusional responding was rapidly replaced by appropriate responding on both sets of the trained stimuli. Across person and setting generalization occurred in assessments conducted immediately following training, and these effects were maintained for 15 months. The results suggest that Cues, Pause, Point procedures may offer some potential for replacing delusional responding with appropriate responding to social stimuli.