SUNDAY, Oct. 12, 2025 (HealthDay News) — A new study from Case Western Reserve University suggests a major shift in schizophrenia treatment: One that focuses on helping patients better interpret social cues.
“We’ve been treating schizophrenia with a one-size-fits-all approach for decades,” Jessica Wojtalik, an assistant professor at the Cleveland university’s school of applied social sciences, said in a news release. “Now we have a specific target that could help young patients get their lives back on track much faster."
The findings — published recently in the journal Psychiatry Research — identify a key brain function known as social inference skills as a potential new focus for early treatment. It’s a person’s ability to “read between the lines” in social situations.
Schizophrenia, a serious mental illness that affects how people think, feel and behave, often begins during the teenage years when the brain is still developing, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
This timing can have lifelong effects on relationships, learning and emotional control.
The new study found that improving patients’ ability to interpret tone, body language and sarcasm — skills essential for navigating everyday interactions — could help them function better in everyday life.
“Think of social inference as your brain’s social detective work,” lead author Anju Kotwani, a doctoral student in applied social sciences at Case Western, said in a news release. “It’s how you figure out what someone really means when they say ‘fine’ in a certain tone or how you know when someone is being sarcastic versus serious.”
The research team studied 102 patients in the early stages of schizophrenia and found that social cognition (the brain’s ability to understand and respond to social cues) serves as a critical link between basic thinking skills and day-to-day functioning.
Their results suggest that training programs that strengthen social inference skills through structured computer games or guided worksheets could be more effective than traditional methods focused on memory or attention alone.
Researchers hope the findings will help shape new community-based treatment programs aimed at young folks newly diagnosed with schizophrenia.
“Addressing both thinking skills and social understanding offers the best hope for functional recovery in early schizophrenia,” Kotwani said.
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