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Associations between childhood poverty and cognitive outcomes have been examined from multiple perspectives. However, most evidence is based on cross-sectional data or longitudinal data covering only segments of the developmental process. Moreover, previous longitudinal research has mostly relied on data from Western nations, limiting insights of poverty dynamics in low- and middle-income countries. Here, we use data from the Mauritius Child Health Project, a large-scale prospective longitudinal study conducted in a then low-income country, to examine long-term associations between poverty in early childhood and cognitive performance across childhood and adolescence. Poverty-related factors were assessed at age 3 years and comprised indicators of psychosocial adversity and malnutrition. Cognitive functioning was assessed at ages 3 and 11 years by using standardized intelligence measures and at age 17 years by means of a computerized test battery. Using multiple hierarchical regression models, we found that chronic malnutrition and parental characteristics showed similar-sized, independent associations with initial cognitive functioning at age 3 as well as at age 11 years. For age 17 years, however, associations with early childhood risk factors vanished and instead, cognitive functioning was predicted by performance on prior cognitive assessments. Sex was also found to be a powerful predictor of cognitive trajectories, with boys improving and girls worsening over time, regardless of the level of their initial exposure to risk. The current findings indicate that, to prevent cognitive impairment, interventions tackling poverty and malnutrition should focus on the infancy period and be designed in a gender-sensitive way.

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OBJECTIVE: Negative home environments are associated with both schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and crime, but whether this is due to the social or cognitive sequelae of such environments is unclear. This study investigates the effect of early home environments on adult mental health. METHOD: Using data from the Mauritius Child Health Project, a multiple time-point prospective study where all children born in 1969 in two towns (Quatre Bornes and Vacaos) were recruited at age 3 years (N = 1794), a group of children left home alone at age 3 (n = 34) were compared to children cared for by siblings/relatives (n = 222), or by mothers (n = 1498) on antisocial behavior and schizotypal personality at ages 11, 17, and 23 years. RESULTS: Home alone children showed higher scores on psychotic behavior and conduct disorder at age 17, and also schizotypal personality and crime at 23 years compared to the other groups. No negative behavioral or cognitive effects were observed at age 11. Findings were not accounted for by social adversity or ethnicity and appear to be 'sleeper effects' in that they do not emerge until later adolescence and into adulthood. CONCLUSIONS: Findings appear to be the first to show the negative effects of dual-parental daytime absence on adult schizotypy and crime, a finding that cannot be accounted for by verbal and spatial cognitive impairments. Results suggest an early common psychosocial denominator to the two comorbid conditions of antisocial behavior and schizotypy.

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INTRODUCTION AND AIMS: The purpose of this study was to identify latent classes of alcohol problems and their sociodemographic correlates in the east African nation of Mauritius. DESIGN AND METHODS: Participants were from the Joint Child Health Project, a longitudinal study of a 1969-1970 birth cohort of 1795 individuals. In mid-adulthood (M = 37 years), all available participants (n = 1206; 67% of the original cohort) were assessed for demographic characteristics, and lifetime drinkers were assessed for alcohol-related problems. Given the low endorsement of problems by women, only male lifetime drinkers (n = 520) were included in the latent class analyses. RESULTS: Analyses indicated the best-fitting model contained four classes of drinkers: Non-problematic (66%), Moderate (16%), Hazardous (11%) and Severe (6%). Lower education and occupation were associated with Moderate and Severe problem classes, whereas higher education and occupation were associated with the Hazardous class. Being Hindu, Tamil and Creole were differentially predictive of class membership, but being Muslim was not. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: Our findings provide evidence of a distinct Hazardous drinking class that has unique demographic correlates and may represent a cluster of problems that is more bound by cultural factors. We also found problem classes on a severity continuum from none to moderate to severe problems. This study highlights the importance of examining societal, subgroup and person-level factors to produce a more nuanced understanding of distinct classes of alcohol-related problems. [Luczak SE, Prescott CA, Venables PH. Latent classes of alcohol problems in Mauritian men: Results from the Joint Child Health Project.

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BACKGROUND: While recent cross-sectional research has documented a relationship between sleep problems and antisocial behavior, the longitudinal nature of this relationship is unknown. This study tests both the hypothesis that adolescent daytime sleepiness is associated with later adult criminal offending, and also tests a biopsychosocial mediation model in which social adversity predisposes to sleepiness, which in turn predisposes to attentional impairment, and to adult crime. METHODS: Schoolboys aged 15 years rated themselves on self-report sleepiness. Age 15 antisocial behavior was assessed by teacher ratings and self-reports, while convictions for crime were assessed at age 29. Attentional capacity at age 15 was assessed by autonomic orienting, with arousal assessed by the electroencephalogram (EEG). RESULTS: Sleepy adolescents were more likely to be antisocial during adolescence, and were 4.5 times more likely to commit crime by age 29. The sleepiness-adult crime relationship withstood control for adolescent antisocial behavior. Self-report sleepiness predicted to adult crime over and above objective measures of daytime sleepiness (EEG theta activity) and age 15 antisocial behavior. Poor daytime attention partly mediated the sleep-crime relationship. Mediation analyses also showed that social adversity predisposed to daytime sleepiness which was associated with reduced attention which in turn predisposed to adult crime. CONCLUSIONS: Findings are the first to document a longitudinal association between sleepiness in adolescence and crime in adulthood. The longitudinal nature of this relationship, controlling for age 15 antisocial behavior, is consistent with the hypothesis that adolescent sleepiness predisposes to later antisociality. Findings are also consistent with the notion that the well-established link between social adversity and adult crime is partly explained by sleepiness. Results suggest that a very brief and simple assessment of subjective daytime sleepiness may have prognostic clinical value, and that interventions to reduced sleepiness could be a useful avenue for future crime prevention.

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Previous work has shown that malnutrition has deleterious effects on both IQ and aspects of temperament. It is hypothesized that while malnutrition bears a direct relation to IQ, aspects of temperament are also involved in a mediating role so that they produce indirect associations between malnutrition and IQ. The study examines the association of 3 indices of malnutrition-stunting, anemia and wasting-to Verbal IQ (VIQ) and Performance IQ (PIQ) and temperament in 1,376 3-year-old and 11-year-old children in Mauritius. Two dimensions of temperament were extracted from ratings of behavior and were labeled as Uninhibited (UI) and Task Orientation (TO). At age 3 stunting had direct relations to Verbal IQ and Performance IQ and also indirect relations via the mediating effect of temperament (UI but not TO). In the case of anemia there were no direct relations to VIQ or PIQ but both temperament meditators were involved in indirect relations. For wasting, indirect but not direct relations were observed. When age 11 cognitive performance was examined, there were direct relations to stunting and anemia and indirect relations via UI, but not TO. The relations between malnutrition and IQ were graded and linear showing that it is not only when malnutrition is defined by its severest levels that it has an effect on cognitive performance. It is suggested that malnutrition affects those brain structures and functions that are involved in both cognitive behavior and temperament.

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Little is known about the stability of schizotypy across relatively long time periods and instrumentation. This study assesses the degree of stability between schizotypy and its three factor structure as assessed by the Survey of Attitudes and Experiences (SAE) at age 17, and the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) at age 23. A sample of 678 at ages 17 and 23 years from a birth cohort in Mauritius were split into two random samples, with initial analyses on the first sample independently replicated on the second sample. Cognitive-perceptual, interpersonal, and disorganized factors at age 17 correlated from 0.28 to 0.32 with their respective factors at age 23. Total scores correlated 0.41 (d=0.90) across this six year time period and increased to 0.58 (d=1.42) after correcting for measurement error. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses showed an area under the curve value of 0.74, confirmed prediction over time. Findings on predictive validity were closely replicated in the second independent sample. In contrast, social anhedonia at age 17 was unrelated to interpersonal deficits at age 23. Results provide replicable support for the moderate stability of cognitive-perceptual, interpersonal, and disorganized schizotypy across time, instrumentation, and a period of rapid developmental change.

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This study examined the relationship between childhood cognitive functioning and academic achievement and subsequent alcohol use and problems in a non-Western setting. We examined longitudinal data from a birth cohort sample (N = 1,795) who were assessed at age 11 years on cognitive measures and then approximately 25 years later on lifetime alcohol use and alcohol use disorder symptom count. The sample was from Mauritius (eastern Africa), which allowed us to examine these relationships in a non-Western society with a different social structure than is typical of prior cognitive studies on primarily White samples in Western societies. Poorer performance on the Trail Making Test B-A in childhood predicted being a lifetime drinker, even after covarying for gender, childhood psychosocial adversity, and Muslim religion. Lower academic achievement and verbal IQ, but not performance IQ, were predictive of subsequent alcohol problems after including demographic covariates; the relationship between verbal IQ and alcohol problems was stronger in females than males. A nonlinear relationship emerged for Trails, suggesting that only more extreme impairment on this measure was indicative of later alcohol problems. Results of this study provide evidence that verbal deficits and poor academic performance exist in a general cohort sample by age 11 years (when 99% were nondrinkers) for those who go on to develop alcohol problems. (PsycINFO Database Record

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In long-term studies of psychological development, the initial assessment of etiologically significant child behaviours is often carried out at a single point in time only. However, one-time assessments of behaviour are likely to possess limited reliability, leading to attenuated longitudinal correlation coefficient magnitudes. How much this bias might have affected behavioural continuity estimates in longitudinal research is presently unknown. Using a data set from the Mauritius Child Health Project, we particularize the attenuating effects of single-occasion behavioural assessments on consistency estimates of impulsive-aggressive behaviour over time. Specifically, two nursery teachers provided 15 consecutive weekly ratings of the aggressive behaviour of 99 four-year-old children. The same children were reassessed for the presence of externalizing behaviour problems at the ages of 8 and 10. There were substantial increases in both reliability and predictive correlation coefficient magnitudes when the preschool scores were aggregated across several weekly ratings. A further increase resulted after the two outcome assessments were combined into a composite score of school-age externalizing symptoms. A generalized procedure, developed from the correction for attenuation formula, is introduced to describe the relation of aggregation to predictive validity in longitudinal research.

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BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to examine religious factors associated with alcohol involvement in Mauritius. The three main religions on the island, Hinduism, Catholicism, and Islam, promote different views of the appropriate use of alcohol. Based on reference group theory, we hypothesized that both the content of a religion's alcohol norms and an individual's religious commitment would relate to alcohol use behavior. METHODS: Participants were from the Joint Child Health Project, a longitudinal study that has followed a birth cohort of 1.795 individuals since 1972 when they were 3 years old. All available participants (67%; 55% male) were assessed in mid-adulthood on religious variables, lifetime drinking, and lifetime alcohol use disorders. RESULTS: Across religions, individuals who viewed their religion as promoting abstinence were less likely to be drinkers. Religious commitment was associated with reduced probability of drinking only in those who viewed their religion as promoting abstinence. Among drinkers, abstention norms and religious commitment were not associated with lower likelihood of alcohol use disorders. In Catholics who viewed their religion as promoting abstinence and still were drinkers, high religious commitment was associated with increased risk for alcohol use disorders. CONCLUSIONS: Predictions based on reference group theory were largely supported, with religious norms and commitment differentially related to alcohol use and problems both across religions and among individuals within religions. Findings highlight the importance of examining multiple aspects of religion to better understand the relationship of religion with alcohol behaviors.

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This study examined the measurement structure of Child Behavior Checklist internalizing and externalizing syndrome scales in 1,146 eleven-year-old children from a birth cohort in Mauritius. We tested for measurement invariance at configural, metric, and scalar levels by gender and religioethnicity (Creole, Hindu, Muslim). A pared-down model representing five primary factors and two secondary factors met all three forms of invariance, supporting the validity of their use for group comparisons among Mauritian children. As rated by their parents, girls were higher than boys on Somatic Complaints and lower on Aggressive Behavior, Attention Problems, and Externalizing. Creoles were higher than Muslims and Hindus on all seven factors. Hindus were higher than Muslims on Somatic Complaints and lower on Aggressive Behavior. To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate strict invariance of a Child Behavior Checklist-based internalizing and externalizing factor structure among subgroups within a society.

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Reduced P3 amplitude to targets is an information-processing deficit associated with adult antisocial behavior and may reflect dysfunction of the temporal-parietal junction. This study aims to examine whether this deficit precedes criminal offending. From a birth cohort of 1,795 children, 73 individuals who become criminal offenders at age 23 and 123 noncriminal individuals were assessed on P3 amplitude. The two groups did not differ on gender, ethnicity, and social adversity. P3 amplitude was measured over the temporal-parietal junction during a visual continuous performance task at age 11, together with antisocial behavior. Criminal convictions were assessed at age 23. Reduced P3 amplitude at age 11 was associated with increased antisocial behavior at age 11. Criminal offenders showed significantly reduced P3 amplitudes to target stimuli compared to controls. Findings remained significant after controlling for antisocial behavior and hyperactivity at age 11 and alcoholism at age 23. P3 deficits at age 11 are associated with adult crime at age 23, suggesting that reduced P3 may be an early neurobiological marker for cognitive and affective processes subserved by the temporal-parietal junction that place a child at risk for adult crime.

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OBJECTIVE: Poor prenatal nutrition has been associated with schizophrenia spectrum disorders in the Netherlands and China, and it has been suggested that perinatal and postnatal nutritional factors lead to the development of schizophrenia and the exhibition of schizotypal traits later in life. There appears to be no prior research on the existence of possible factors that may mediate the relationship between malnutrition and schizophrenia spectrum disorders or whether this association is a direct one. The authors tested the hypothesis that low IQ mediates the relationship between early childhood malnutrition and adult schizotypal personality. METHOD: Participants were drawn from a birth cohort of 1,795 boys and girls who were followed prospectively. Objective indicators of malnutrition (anemia and stunting) were assessed at age 3. Verbal and performance intelligence were assessed at age 11, and schizotypal personality was assessed at age 23. RESULTS: Both stunting and anemia at age 3 were associated with low IQ at age 11. Low performance IQ at age 11 was associated with increased interpersonal and disorganized features of schizotypal personality at age 23. Poor performance IQ was found to mediate the relationship between poor nutrition at age 3 and interpersonal and disorganized features of schizotypy at age 23. Findings in female participants were replicated in male participants. CONCLUSIONS: Given that poor nutrition is an alterable risk factor, these findings suggest that nutritional enhancements may improve brain functioning and possibly reduce some features of schizotypal personality disorder.

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Although allostatic load has been investigated in mood and anxiety disorders, no prior study has investigated developmental change in allostatic load as a precursor to schizotypal personality. This study employed a multilevel developmental framework to examine whether the development of increased allostatic load, as indicated by impaired sympathetic nervous system habituation from ages 3 to 11 years, predisposes to schizotypal personality at age 23 years. Electrodermal activity to six aversive tones was recorded in 995 subjects at age 3 years and again at 11 years. Habituation slopes at both ages were used to create groups who showed a developmental increase in habituation (decreased allostatic load), and those who showed a developmental decrease in habituation (increased allostatic load). Children who showed a developmental increase in allostatic load from ages 3 to 11 years had higher levels of schizotypal personality at 23 years. A breakdown of total schizotypy scores demonstrated specificity of findings to cognitive-perceptual features of schizotypy. Findings are the first to document a developmental abnormality in allostasis in relation to adult schizotypal personality. The relative failure to develop normal habituation to repeated stressors throughout childhood is hypothesized to result in an accumulation of allostatic load and consequently increased positive symptom schizotypy in adulthood.

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Although fear conditioning is an important psychological construct implicated in behavioral and emotional problems, little is known about how it develops in early childhood. Using a differential, partial reinforcement conditioning paradigm, this longitudinal study assessed skin conductance conditioned responses in 200 children at ages 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 years. Results demonstrated that in both boys and girls: (1) fear conditioning increased across age, particularly from ages 5 to 6 years, (2) the three components of skin conductance fear conditioning that reflect different degrees of automatic and controlled cognitive processes exhibited different developmental profiles, and (3) individual differences in arousal, orienting, and the unconditioned response were associated with individual differences in conditioning, with the influence of orienting increasing at later ages. This first longitudinal study of the development of skin conductance fear conditioning in children both demonstrates that children as young as age 3 years evidence fear conditioning in a difficult acquisition paradigm, and that different sub-components of skin conductance conditioning have different developmental trajectories.

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OBJECTIVE: Amygdala dysfunction is theorized to give rise to poor fear conditioning, which in turn predisposes to crime, but it is not known whether poor conditioning precedes criminal offending. This study prospectively assessed whether poor fear conditioning early in life predisposes to adult crime in a large cohort. METHOD: Electrodermal fear conditioning was assessed in a cohort of 1,795 children at age 3, and registration for criminal offending was ascertained at age 23. In a case-control design, 137 cohort members with a criminal record were matched on gender, ethnicity, and social adversity with 274 noncriminal comparison members. Statistical analyses compared childhood fear conditioning for the two groups. RESULTS: Criminal offenders showed significantly reduced electrodermal fear conditioning at age 3 compared to matched comparison subjects. CONCLUSIONS: Poor fear conditioning at age 3 predisposes to crime at age 23. Poor fear conditioning early in life implicates amygdala and ventral prefrontal cortex dysfunction and a lack of fear of socializing punishments in children who grow up to become criminals. These findings are consistent with a neurodevelopmental contribution to crime causation.

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BACKGROUND: Poor fear conditioning characterizes adult psychopathy and criminality, but it is not known whether it is related to aggressive/antisocial behavior in early childhood. METHODS: Using a differential, partial reinforcement conditioning paradigm, electrodermal activity was recorded from 200 male and female children at ages 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 years. Antisocial/aggressive and hyperactive-inattentive measures were collected at age 8. RESULTS: Poor electrodermal fear conditioning from ages 3 to 8 years was associated with aggressive behavior at age 8 in both males and females. CONCLUSIONS: Results indicate that the relationship between poor fear conditioning and aggression occurs early in childhood. Enhanced electrodermal fear conditioning may protect children against future aggressive/violent behavior. Abnormal amygdala functioning, as indirectly assessed by fear conditioning, may be one of the factors influencing the development of childhood aggression.

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Prior studies have shown that birth complications interact with psychosocial risk factors in predisposing to increased externalizing behavior in childhood and criminal behavior in adulthood. However, little is known about the direct relationship between birth complications and externalizing behavior. Furthermore, the mechanism by which the birth complications predispose to externalizing behavior is not well explored. This study aims to assess whether birth complications predispose to early adolescent externalizing behavior and to test whether Intelligence Quotient (IQ) mediates relationships between predictor and outcome variables. We used data from a prospective, longitudinal birth cohort of 1,795 3-year-old boys and girls from Mauritius to test hypotheses. Birth complications were assessed from hospital record data, malnutrition from a pediatric exam at age 3 years, psychosocial adversity from parental interviews at age 3 years, and externalizing behavior problems from parental ratings at age 11 years. We found that babies with birth complications are more likely to develop externalizing behavior problems at age 11. Low IQ was associated with birth complications and was found to mediate the link between early predictors and later externalizing behavior. These prospective, longitudinal findings have potential clinical implications for the identification of early adolescent externalizing behavior and for public health attempts to prevent the occurrence of child externalizing behavior problems.

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Emerging research on psychopathy in children and adolescents raises the question of whether indicators, such as temperament or psychophysiology, exist very early in life in those with a psychopathic-like personality in adulthood. This study tests the hypothesis that individuals who are more psychopathic in adulthood would be less fearful and inhibited and more stimulation seeking/sociable at age 3 and that they would also show reduced age 3 skin-conductance (SC) responsivity. In a community sample of 335 3-year-olds, behavioral measures of temperament were taken and electrodermal activity was recorded in response to both orienting and aversive tones. R. D. Hare's (1985) Self-Report Psychopathy scale (SRP-II) was administered at follow-up at age 28. Individuals scoring higher on the measure were significantly less fearful and inhibited, were more sociable, and displayed longer SC half-recovery times to aversive stimuli compared with controls at age 3. Contrary to predictions, they also showed increased autonomic arousal and SC orienting. Findings appear to be the first to suggest that a prospective link may exist between temperament and psychophysiology in very young children and psychopathic personality in adulthood.

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Little is known about the development of the skin conductance orienting response (SCOR) in childhood. This longitudinal study examines the effects of age on initial SCOR, habituation, and reorienting. Skin conductance responses to nonsignal auditory stimuli were recorded from 200 male and female children at five different time points (ages 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 years). Longitudinal latent growth curve analyses were used to determine the trajectory of each SCOR measure during this period. Results indicated that (a) initial SCOR is present at age 3, increases thereafter to peak at age 6, and then levels off, (b) habituation is absent at age 3, but becomes apparent at age 4 years and increases thereafter with increasing age, (c) SC reorienting is absent from ages 3 to 8, and (d) boys and girls do not exhibit different developmental trajectories. Results suggest that from age 3 to 8 years, the transition from the functionally immature to mature neural network underlying orienting and habituation is a continuous process and may be related to children's cognitive development during this period.

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