View this email in your browser

June Newsletter | 2026 Issue #2

Shared on behalf of Dr. Lena Palaniyappan.

By Paulina Dzialoszynski & Betsy Schaefer

Hello!

Please see below the exciting news coming from Discourse in Psychosis collaborators across the globe.

A note from Montreal:

This city is turning glorious – as it usually does after a long winter each year. I find myself even more excited knowing that many of you will get to experience

Montreal’s special warmth firsthand, with the Discourse 2027 meeting proposed to be hosted right here. We can’t wait to welcome you!

Looking back, our April consortium meeting in Pavia was a wonderful gathering. Please scroll through this issue for photographs and reminiscences from the meeting. A good reminder of the strength and warmth of this community.

This issue also features our growing Recent Publications list. Please take a moment to browse through it. I am especially pleased with the new Experiential Science column in Schizophrenia Research that features our Lived Experience expert members’ contributions.

A reminder to everyone: please send any relevant publication updates to Betsy or Paulina so we can keep this list as complete as possible.

Enjoy the upcoming summer / winter break,

Lena

Highlights – Discourse Satellite Meeting Pavia 2026

Language and Thought in the Brain and in Mental Health

Please find all the materials (slides, videos, and posters) from the meeting in Pavia here https://discourseinpsychosis.org/meetings/

All videos can also be found on the NepLab YouTube channel

https://www.youtube.com/@NEPLab_IUSSPavia. Thanks to Federico Frau for meticulous curation!

Thought and Language Disorder Scale (TALD) Training in Pavia

For further information and to access the Thought and Language Disorder Scale training video, registered members on the Discourse Website can log in and access

this information within the Resources page-> Scales -> TALD -> English TALD Training -> 02 Video

Travel Grant Awards

Early Career Recipients have annually been enabled to attend and present their work at the DISCOURSE Consortium meetings.

This year, the Monique H. Bourgeois Chair, supported by the François Bourgeois Foundation in Montreal, Canada (Dr. Palaniyappan) and the European Union’s IUSS Educating Future Citizens initiative, in Pavia, Italy (Dr. Valentina Bambini) helped provide travel grants.

Discourse Satellite Meeting Montreal 2027

Exciting news, the next DISCOURSE Consortium meeting will be held in Montréal, next year, April 15th alongside the Schizophrenia International Research Society (SIRS) congress scheduled for April 10–14, 2027, Montreal, Canada. We are constituting a program planning group to join the local host team – we need volunteers for Poster/Talk Selection Committee – all DISCOURSE members are welcome to join. Reach out to Betsy Schaefer bschaefe@uwo.ca if you are interested.

Discourse Chronicle

Please see the attached PDF of Dr. Dalia Elleuch’s Blog post.

We are looking for volunteers to submit future blogs for upcoming Discourse Newsletters. If you’re interested in contributing please contact Betsy Schaefer bschaefe@uwo.ca.

Discourse Impact Statement

We continually track total grant amounts that is generated through the existence of the Discourse consortium – this is important in order to prepare impact statements and obtain further resources for the network. So, please reach out to Betsy Schaefer bschaefe@uwo.ca with any new grant funds you have received since March 2026 onwards, that reference our network, working groups and/or protocol in funding applications.

Discourse Metadatabase

Please see the attached file and add/update to our growing Discourse Metadatabase! Please contact Sunny Tang (stang3@northwell.edu) with any questions.

Discourse Work Groups Update

Recently at the Pavia meeting a proposal for the formation of a new Work Group was presented by Dr. Valeria Lucarini, entitled

“Phenomenology in Language and Communication”

Please see further details https://discourseinpsychosis.org/working-groups/ as the group meets more details will be provided here.

“SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP ON MULTILINGUALISM.”

A new Work Group proposal is currently being tabled. Prof. Debra Titone (Professor, McGill) and Chaimaa El Mouslih (doctoral trainee, McGill) are calling for a special interest group focussing on multilingualism, psychosis, and language, as part of the Discourse consortium. If you are interested in developing this further, please reach out to them at debra.titone@mcgill.ca and chaimaa.elmouslih@mail.mcgill.ca.

Please see further details https://discourseinpsychosis.org/working-groups/ as the group meets more details will be provided here.

Ranjini Garani from McGill University will be contacting the various leads periodically to facilitate the exchange of information across the channels.

Please see the latest updates from each working group on the Discourse in Psychosis website below.

Seminar Series 2026

Please stay tuned for announcements about our next Discourse Seminar series, resuming again in September 2026. Our seminar series for 2026 has been hosted by the Theory, Mechanisms and Models group, thanks to Drs. Maria Francisca Alonso Sanchez and Gina Kuperberg.

All past Discourse Seminar YouTube recordings from 2021 to 2026 can be found on our website https://discourseinpsychosis.org/seminars-meetings/

For your convenience, we will keep seminar details up to date on this public Google calendar, which you can subscribe to: https://tinyurl.com/3b568arx

Recent Publications

Alonso-Sánchez MF, Sović MS, Savić A. Language of Individuals With Schizophrenia, Editor(s): Hilary Nesi, Petar Milin,International Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (Third Edition), Elsevier, 2026, Pages 479-485.

Abboud F et al. The functional relevance of a short assessment of formal thought disorder in psychosis. Br J Psychiatry. 2026 May 26:1-9. doi: 10.1192/bjp.2026.10650.

Bhullar S et al. TOPSY: A picture description dataset to examine speech, language and communication in untreated first episode psychosis. Data Brief. 2026 Apr 24;66:112788. doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2026.112788.

Chen F et al. Reading between the lines: Combining pause dynamics and semantic coherence for automated assessment of thought disorder. Neuropsychologia. 2026 Jul 28;228:109473. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia. 2026.109473.

Cho B et al. The DISCOURSE in psychosis (London Ontario): A speech dataset to examine communication disturbances in early-stage psychosis. Data Brief. 2026;65:112517. doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2026.112517.

Çokal D et al. Automated detection of referential features in schizophrenic speech using large language models. Neuropsychologia. 2026 May 22;230:109505. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2026.109505.

Constant A et al. Setting digital psychiatry in motion: towards dynamic digital markers for digital phenotyping. NPP—Digital Psychiatry and Neuroscience. 2026 Mar 12;4(1):6.

Demirlek C et al. No Evidence for Cognitive Decline in First-Episode Psychosis: A Meta-Analysis of Long-Term Longitudinal Studies. Schizophr Bull. 2026 Mar 7;52(2):sbaf237. doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbaf237.

Elleuch D, Palaniyappan L. Deciphering the impact of childhood trauma on schizophrenia: A qualitative case study of dialogical aspects. Psychol Trauma. 2026 Mar;18(3):517-526. doi: 10.1037/tra0002095.

Meister F, et al. Expressive pragmatic language in mood and psychotic disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Schizophrenia. 2026;12(1):31. doi: 10.1038/s41537-026-00733-2.

Montaña-Valverde G et al. Brain function in language and associated networks in non- or minimally verbal children. Brain Commun. 2026 Apr 27;8(3):fcag151. doi: 10.1093/braincomms/fcag151. PMID: 42125176; PMCID: PMC13158019.

Murthy C et al. “Are you recording this chat?” Experiential perspectives on audiovisual data collection in psychiatric care and research. Schizophr Res. 2026 May 7;294:164-165. doi:10.1016/j.schres.2026.04.025.

Oliver LD et al.; and the SPINS Group. Multivariate relationships between social cognitive performance and functional connectivity during task and rest across schizophrenia spectrum disorders and healthy controls. Mol Psychiatry. 2026 Mar 12. doi: 10.1038/s41380-026-03504-8.

Palaniyappan L et al. Increasing participation of people with thought disorder in clinical research. Eur Psychiatry. 2026 Apr 27;69(1):e56. doi: 10.1192/j.eurpsy.2026.12211.

Palaniyappan L. Grounding psychosis research: why observable signs should anchor biological investigations. Frontiers in Psychiatry. 2026 Feb 27;17:1777099. 10.3389/fpsyt.2026.1777099

Palaniyappan L et al. High-Risk Human–AI Engagement: Clinical Assessment and Management Considerations. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. 2026 Apr 25:07067437261445770.

Palaniyappan L, et al. Why is it hard to assess thought disorder? Clarifying the third domain of psychosis. Schizophrenia Research. 2026 Jun 1;292:41-52.

Sreeraj VS et al. What is being measured by formal thought disorder scales? An item-level content analysis. Psychol Med. 2026 Apr 13;56:e106. doi: 10.1017/S0033291726104152.

Vasic J, Andjelic B, Mancic A, et al. Lyapunov Spectral Analysis of Speech Embedding Trajectories in Psychosis. 18 Feb 2026. arXiv:2602.16273. http://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2602.16273

Discourse Protocol

The Discourse Protocol is now being used around the world for harmonized data collection. Currently, we have 15 translations.

Please take a look within the Membership Directory Files, for a folder named Discourse Protocol, which can be found here. https://discourseinpsychosis.org/resources/

Please email pdzialos@uwo.ca for any updates on you want to share with the Discourse in Psychosis community.

Connect with DISCOURSE Colleagues! Join our Slack workspace with this link:

https://join.slack.com/t/discourseinpsychosis/shared_invite/zt-2hztam1m9-vVtV55v6zW0GS7A9MY7QyQ