Lists of phonologically similar items are more often recalled in the wrong order than phonologically dissimilar items. At recall, patients with schizophrenia were neither especially susceptible to confusing phonologically similar items nor to making disproportionate movement (i.e. order) errors with phonologically similar lists of items. We conclude that patients with schizophrenia employ recall strategies for phonologically similar items in short-term memory that are equivalent to those of healthy controls.