In Mental Health Diagnoses
Word salad may describe a symptom of mental conditions in which a person attempts to communicate an idea, but words and phrases that may appear to be random and unrelated come out in an incoherent sequence instead. Often, the person is unaware that he or she did not make sense. It appears in people with dementia and schizophrenia, as well as after anoxic brain injury.
It may be present as:
- Receptive aphasia
- Schizophasia, a mental condition characterized by incoherent babbling (compulsive or intentional, but nonsensical)
- Logorrhea, a mental condition characterized by excessive talking (incoherent and compulsive)
- Clanging, a speech pattern that follows rhyming and other sound associations rather than meaning.
Read more about this topic: Word Salad
Famous quotes containing the words mental and/or health:
“Cultivate the habit of thinking ahead, and of anticipating the necessary and immediate consequences of all your actions.... Likewise in your pleasures, ask yourself what such and such an amusement leads to, as it is essential to have an objective in everything you do. Any pastime that contributes nothing to bodily strength or to mental alertness is a totally ridiculous, not to say, idiotic, pleasure.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“I would hope that parents and grown children could be friends. When a friend confides in you that she’s going to do something that you think is most inappropriate, foolhardy or even dangerous, wouldn’t you as a friend say so—in a calm, supportive way? Yet I have to be so careful what I say to my children. I have to walk on eggs to be sure I’m not hurting their feelings or interfering with their lives.”
—Anonymous Parent of Adult Children. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 5 (1978)