ABSTRACT
The prospective longitudinal studies of Pittsburgh Firstborns conducted since 1963 have focused on quite a different population selected from healthy full-term infants. This chapter provides a report of the preliminary data analysis of the most recent phase of the studies—an evaluation of the firstborns at age 15 years. Except for racial distribution due to the loss of the 20 black subjects in the original population, the demographic data for the original population were comparable with the data for the subpopulation evaluated at each age. The proportion of children rated at High-Risk was almost identical in the original and follow-up groups. The chapter presents a report of the data analysis of the evaluation of psychosocial development of firstborns during midadolescence. The data indicate that the association between the maternal perception of the neonate and the subsequent psychosocial development of the child has persisted over time and is predictive of the probability of mental disorder at age 15 among the firstborns.
