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.

Previous studies have repeatedly shown verbal intelligence deficits in adolescent antisocialindividuals, 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 whethercognitive deficits occur as early as age 3 years and whether they are specific to persistentlyantisocial individuals. Verbal and spatial abilities were assessed at ages 3 and 11 years in 330 maleand female children, while antisocial behavior was assessed at ages 8 and 17 years. Persistentlyantisocial individuals (N = 47) had spatial deficits in the absence of verbal deficits atage 3 years compared to comparisons (N = 133), and also spatial and verbal deficits atage 11 years. Age 3 spatial deficits were independent of social adversity, early hyperactivity, poortest motivation, poor test comprehension, and social discomfort during testing, and they werefound in females as well as males. Findings suggest that early spatial deficits contribute topersistent antisocial behavior whereas verbal deficits are developmentally acquired. Anearly-starter model is proposed whereby early spatial impairments interfere with early bonding andattachment, reflect disrupted right hemisphere affect regulation and expression, and predispose tolater persistent antisocial behavior.

Little is known about the effects of environmental enrichment on psychophysiological measures of arousal and orienting in humans. This study tests the hypothesis that early educational and health enrichment is associated with long-term increases in psychophysiological orienting and arousal. One hundred children were experimentally assigned to a two-year enriched nursery school intervention at ages 3–5 years and matched at age 3 years on psychophysiological measures, gender, and ethnicity to 100 comparisons who received the normal educational experience. Children were retested 6–8 years later at age 11 years on skin conductance (SC) and electroencephalogram (EEG) measures of arousal and attention during pre- and postexperimental rest periods and during the continuous performance task. Nursery enrichment was associated with increased SC amplitudes, faster SC rise times, faster SC recovery times, and less slow-wave EEG during both rest and CPT conditions. This is believed to be the first study to show that early environmental enrichment is associated with long-term increases in psychophysiological orienting and arousal in humans. Results draw attention to the important influence of the early environment in shaping later psychophysiological functioning.

This study examined the effect of mothers' exposure to the 1957 A2/Singapore influenza virus in the first, second, and third trimesters of pregnancy on the electrodermal activity of their 15-year-old offspring. The epidemic occurred during cold months of the year. The results show that maternal viral (and cold) exposure during all trimesters of pregnancy produced a lower frequency of nonspecific electrodermal responses and diminished responsivity to 75-db and 90-db tones as compared with the offspring of mothers who were not exposed. However, there was a critical effect of second trimester exposure as indicated by an increase in frequency of nonresponses to orienting tones. The findings are compared with those from an earlier study from Mauritius involving 3-year-old children in which the effects of exposure to the 1968 A2/Hong Kong virus were examined and in which the effect of cold exposure could be examined separately because viral exposure occurred during the hot months.

This study examined the effect of mothers' exposure to the 1957 A2/Singapore influenza virus in the first, second, and third trimesters of pregnancy on the electrodermal activity of their 15-year-old offspring. The epidemic occurred during cold months of the year. The results show that maternal viral (and cold) exposure during all trimesters of pregnancy produced a lower frequency of nonspecific electrodermal responses and diminished responsivity to 75-db and 90-db tones as compared with the offspring of mothers who were not exposed. However, there was a critical effect of second trimester exposure as indicated by an increase in frequency of nonresponses to orienting tones. The findings are compared with those from an earlier study from Mauritius involving 3-year-old children in which the effects of exposure to the 1968 A2/Hong Kong virus were examined and in which the effect of cold exposure could be examined separately because viral exposure occurred during the hot months.

Although there have been several reports of investigations of speech perception in schizophrenia (Laffal, 1961; Lawson, McGhie and Chapman, 1964) in all cases the assumption was made that the patients’ difficulties arose, not from an inability to perceive the individual words, but from a deficiency in perceiving the words in a meaningful relationship to each other, as part of an organized pattern. In this study, however, instead of examining the performance of schizophrenic patients on a task involving the perception of sentences, as these earlier workers had done, we have used individual words as stimuli in a series of tests of speech perception.