Latent classes of alcohol problems in Mauritian men: Results from the Joint Child Health Project.

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.

Adolescent daytime sleepiness as a risk factor for adult crime.

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.

The impact of malnutrition on intelligence at 3 and 11 years of age: The mediating role of temperament.

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.

The stability of schizotypy across time and instruments.

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.

Childhood cognitive measures as predictors of alcohol use and problems by mid-adulthood in a non-Western cohort.

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.

Religious factors associated with alcohol involvement: results from the Mauritian Joint Child Health Project.

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.

Measurement invariance of internalizing and externalizing behavioral syndrome factors in a non-Western sample.

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.

The association between p3 amplitude at age 11 and criminal offending at age 23.

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.

Poor nutrition at age 3 and schizotypal personality at age 23: the mediating role of age 11 cognitive functioning.

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.

A developmental increase in allostatic load from ages 3 to 11 years is associated with increased schizotypal personality at age 23 years.

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.

The development of skin conductance fear conditioning in children from ages 3 to 8 years.

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.

Association of poor childhood fear conditioning and adult crime.

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.

Reduced electrodermal fear conditioning from ages 3 to 8 years is associated with aggressive behavior at age 8 years.

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.

The Association of Birth Complications and Externalizing Behavior in Early Adolescents: Direct and Mediating Effects.

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.

Early temperamental and psychophysiological precursors of adult psychopathic personality.

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.

Development of skin conductance orienting, habituation, and reorienting from ages 3 to 8 years: a longitudinal latent growth curve analysis.

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).

Prenatal influenza exposure and delivery complications: implications for the development of schizophrenia.

This study assessed prenatal influenza exposure in relation to pregnancy complications and delivery complications. Participants of this study consisted of a community sample of all mothers of 1,795 children who were a birth cohort recruited at age 3 in a prospective longitudinal project in Mauritius. The onset of the 1968-1972 A2/Hong Kong influenza epidemic in January 1970 was established from officially published death rates and newspaper records.

Reduced electrodermal activity in psychopathy-prone adolescents.

This study tests the hypothesis that psychopathy-prone adolescents show reduced anticipatory skin conductance responding. Electrodermal activity was recorded while participants anticipated and responded to a 105 dB signaled or unsignaled white-noise burst. Using an extreme groups design, the authors used Child Psychopathy Scale (D.

Malnutrition at age 3 years and externalizing behavior problems at ages 8, 11, and 17 years.

Objective: Poor nutrition is thought to predispose to externalizing behavior problems, but to date there appear to have been no prospective longitudinal studies testing this hypothesis. This study assessed whether 1) poor nutrition at age 3 years predisposes to antisocial behavior at ages 8, 11, and 17 years, 2) such relationships are independent of psychosocial adversity, and 3) IQ mediates the relationship between nutrition and externalizing behavior problems.

Method: The participants were drawn from a birth cohort (N=1,795) in whom signs of malnutrition were assessed at age 3 years, cognitive measures were assessed at ages 3 and 11 years, and antisocial, aggressive, and hyperactive behavior was assessed at ages 8, 11, and 17 years.

Malnutrition at age 3 years and lower cognitive ability at age 11 years: independence from psychosocial adversity.

Background: Early malnutrition is linked to poor cognition, but long-term effects have not been extensively examined and psychosocial confounds have not always been controlled.

Objective: To test the hypothesis that malnutrition at age 3 years will be associated with poorer cognitive ability at age 11 years independent of psychosocial confounds.

Design: A prospective, longitudinal study of a birth cohort of 1559 children originally assessed at age 3 years for malnutrition (low hemoglobin level, angular stomatitis, kwashiorkor, and sparse, thin hair) and followed up to age 11 years.

Stimulation seeking and intelligence: a prospective longitudinal study.

The prediction that high stimulation seeking 3-year-olds would have higher IQs by 11 years old was tested in 1,795 children on whom behavioral measures of stimulation seeking were taken at 3 years, together with cognitive ability at 11 years. High 3-year-old stimulation seekers scored 12 points higher on total IQ at age 11 compared with low stimulation seekers and also had superior scholastic and reading ability. Results replicated across independent samples and were found for all gender and ethnic groups.

Spatial but not verbal cognitive deficits at age 3 years in persistently antisocial individuals.

Previous studies have repeatedly shown verbal intelligence deficits in adolescent antisocial individuals, but it is not known whether these deficits are in place prior to kindergarten or, alternatively, whether they are acquired throughout childhood. This study assesses whether cognitive deficits occur as early as age 3 years and whether they are specific to persistently antisocial individuals. Verbal and spatial abilities were assessed at ages 3 and 11 years in 330 male and female children, while antisocial behavior was assessed at ages 8 and 17 years.

Increased psychophysiological arousal and orienting at ages 3 and 11 years in persistently schizotypal adults.

Abnormalities of psychophysiological arousal and orienting are thought to predispose to schizophrenia, but there have been no prior studies of early psychophysiological functioning in "persistent schizotypals" who remain stably schizotypal across time. This study assessed skin conductance (SC) arousal and orienting at ages 3 and 11 years, electroencephalography (EEG) at age 11 years, and behavior problems at age 17 years in 52 individuals who were stably schizotypal from ages 17 to 23 years, and 104 normal controls. Schizotypy was assessed at age 17 with the Schizophrenism scale, and at age 23 with the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ).