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The New York High-Risk Project: social and general intelligence in children at risk for schizophrenia
1Department of Medical Genetics, New York State Psychiatric Institute, and Columbia University, NY 10032, USA. sl210@columbia.edu
Insights
Early detection of schizophrenia may be possible through intelligence assessments. Subtest-Scatter, a measure of IQ subtest differences, predicted adult schizophrenia in at-risk children.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychiatry
- Developmental Psychology
Background:
- Schizophrenia is characterized by early social deficits and cognitive impairments.
- Assessing social intelligence before illness onset could aid early detection.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if social intelligence impairments precede schizophrenia onset.
- To identify predictive markers for adult schizophrenia in at-risk children.
Main Methods:
- Longitudinal study (26 years) of children at risk for schizophrenia (HRSz) or affective disorder (HRAff) and normal controls (NC).
- Compared intelligence quotient (IQ) and social intelligence subtest scores (Picture Arrangement, Comprehension) from childhood to adulthood.
- Utilized logistic regression to model schizophrenia prediction.
Main Results:
- Children at risk for schizophrenia (HRSz) had lower IQ at age 9.7 compared to those at risk for affective disorder (HRAff).
- Low IQ was not conclusively linked to adult schizophrenia, potentially due to study exclusion criteria.
- No significant decline in social intelligence was observed over time or across groups.
- Subtest-Scatter, measuring IQ subtest variability, significantly predicted adult schizophrenia in the overall and HRSz groups.
Conclusions:
- Subtest-Scatter emerged as a significant predictor of adult schizophrenia.
- While social intelligence deficits were not directly identified as early predictors, IQ variability shows promise for risk assessment.
Unlabelled:
Social deficits, as well as low performance on intelligence tests, are known early symptoms of schizophrenia. We studied whether impairment of social intelligence can be detected before the outbreak of the disorder. In the New York High-Risk Project, children at risk for schizophrenia (HRSz) or affective disorder (HRAff) and a normal control group (NC) were studied over the past 26 years. The children are now in mid-adulthood, with known psychiatric outcomes. Developmental and clinical data from childhood can now be related to adulthood diagnoses. We compared mean WISC (or WISC-R) and WAIS (or WAIS-R) scores from childhood and adolescence, and change of IQ, between the risk groups, as well as between the adulthood outcomes. We were specifically interested in the development of social intelligence (the Picture Arrangement and Comprehension subtests). We used logistic regression analyses to generate a model predicting adulthood schizophrenia.
Results:
IQ at age 9,7 was lower in children with HRSz than with HRAff. Adulthood schizophrenia, compared with major depressive disorder and no psychiatric diagnosis could not be related conclusively to low IQ. This may be a result of the study design, since children with IQ below 70 or behavioral problems were not eligible as study subjects. There was no evidence of lower scores or more decline in social intelligence related to age or group membership (risk or outcome). Subtest-Scatter, a nondirectional measure of the differences between all subtests and Vocabulary, reflecting a lesser difference between crystallized and fluid intelligence, was identified as a significant predictor of adulthood schizophrenia, in the whole group as well as in the HRSz group alone.