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The author reports a study to test the hypothesis that parents and children mutually influence one another, and that a deficit in schizophrenic communication contributes to the development of the disorder by adversely affecting the parents. Twelve families with a schizophrenic son, and twelve normal families, were studied. Each participant was asked to interpret a proverb. Then tapes of the interpretations were played, and each participant was asked to match the recorded interpretation to a proverb. Sons listened to tapes made by their own parents, by parents of a schizophrenic, and by parents of a normal boy. Parents listened to tapes made by their own son, by a schizophrenic boy, and by a normal boy. All subjects did worse on the matching task after listening to tapes made by schizophrenics. For concludes that the reciprocal hypothesis is supported in these tasks. But children, whether normal or schizophrenic, showed no increase in "attentional distractors" in their speech after listening to schizophrenic tapes over normal tapes. Parents, whether of normal or of schizophrenic children, showed more attentional distractors in their speech after listening to tapes of schizophrenics. On this measure, the results are not reciprocal. The author feels that this means that the theory that deviant parental communication plays a major role in the etiology of schizophrenia is not supported. She suggests that a complex bidirectional set of influences between the child and parents, unfolding over time, is a more accurate picture.