A Prospective Study of Childhood Neurocognitive Functioning in Schizophrenic Patients and Their Siblings

OBJECTIVE: This study evaluated childhood cognitive functioning in individuals who later developed schizophrenia and in their unaffected siblings. METHOD: Through the National Collaborative Perinatal Project, seven subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children were administered at age 7 t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American journal of psychiatry 2003-11, Vol.160 (11), p.2060-2062
Main Authors: Niendam, Tara A., Bearden, Carrie E., Rosso, Isabelle M., Sanchez, Laura E., Hadley, Trevor, Nuechterlein, Keith H., Cannon, Tyrone D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Age Factors
Biological and medical sciences
Child
Childhood experiences
Cognition & reasoning
Cognition Disorders - diagnosis
Cognition Disorders - epidemiology
Cognition Disorders - genetics
Comorbidity
Female
Humans
Male
Medical sciences
Neurocognitive functioning
Neuropsychological Tests - statistics & numerical data
Patients
Predictors
Prospective Studies
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Psychoses
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia - diagnosis
Schizophrenia - epidemiology
Schizophrenia - genetics
Schizophrenic Psychology
Sibling studies
Siblings
Siblings - psychology
USA
Wechsler Scales - statistics & numerical data
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Summary:OBJECTIVE: This study evaluated childhood cognitive functioning in individuals who later developed schizophrenia and in their unaffected siblings. METHOD: Through the National Collaborative Perinatal Project, seven subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children were administered at age 7 to 32 individuals who developed schizophrenia in adulthood, 25 of their nonschizophrenic siblings, and 201 demographically similar nonpsychiatric comparison subjects. Mixed model analysis was used to examine between-group differences in standardized scores on the subtests. RESULTS: The probands and unaffected siblings had lower scores for picture arrangement, vocabulary, and coding than the comparison subjects but differed from each other only on the coding subtest. CONCLUSIONS: Children who later developed schizophrenia and their siblings showed similar patterns of deficits involving spatial reasoning, verbal knowledge, perceptual-motor speed, and speeded processes of working memory. However, the probands exhibited more severe deficits in perceptual-motor speed and speeded processes of working memory than their unaffected siblings.
ISSN:0002-953X
1535-7228
DOI:10.1176/appi.ajp.160.11.2060