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Three experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of teaching chronic schizophrenic patients to verbally regulate their own behaviour by means of self-instructional training. In Experiment 1, self-instructional training on a short-term memory task produced improvements in performance which did not generalize to a second memory task. In Experiment 2 an attempt to enhance generalization by teaching a rehearsal strategy on two different memory tasks produced improvements of performance only on those new tasks that were similar to the teaching tasks. The third experiment compared task-specific and general problem solving self-instructions and showed no differences in the effectiveness of the two methods. Some of the difficulties encountered when teaching self-instructions to the subjects, together with the failure to produce adequate generalization of treatment effects, leave the clinical utility of the procedure uncertain. Before a practical cognitive therapy for chronic schizophrenics can be developed it will be necessary to explore more fully the relationships that exist between the verbal and non-verbal behaviour of these patients.

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Rehabilitation services seek to address the various needs of persons with chronic schizophrenia but little attention has been paid to their participation informal education . This study surveyed the educational needs of this population . It was hypothesised that these needs are often unmet and that their expression is influenced by an individual's history, expectations and knowledge in relation to education . A questionnaire was administered to 60 subjects in the context of a structured interview . Of the total sample, 26 individuals expressed an interest in further education but only two were currently participating in educational courses . Twelve individuals had recently enquired about further education . Analyses of the data revealed that expressed interest in education was significantly associated with an individual's background and age and with how they construed the associated benefits and difficulties . The implications of the findings for rehabilitation services are discussed .