Child literacy and psychotic experiences in early adolescence: findings from the ALSPAC study

The aim of this study was to use prospective data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) to examine the differences in literacy skills in children who later completed the psychotic like symptoms (PLIKS) interview at 12 years of age. We further examined the association between literacy skills over time in relation to the likelihood of reporting psychotic experiences (PEs). This study examined data from n=6790 children from the ALSPAC cohort who participated in the PLIKS semi-structured interview. Literacy skills such as spelling, basic real and non-real word reading, and reading skills and comprehension were assessed by an ALSPAC spelling task, Wechsler Objective Reading Dimension, and the revised Neale Analysis of Reading Ability (NARA II) respectively. Relative to the group unaffected by PEs, we found a lower performance in all measurements of child literacy skills in those with suspected or definite PEs. The majority of these differences persisted after adjusting for a range of covariates. In addition, both a consistently low pattern of performance and a decline were associated with suspected or definite PEs. Implications for preventative intervention models focussed on children at risk of developing psychotic disorders are discussed within the context of speech and language development.