Psychiatry Research 121 (2004) 303–307 0165-1781/04/$ - see front matter  2003 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0165-1781(03)00257-9 Brief report Academic deterioration prior to first episode schizophrenia in young Singaporean males Yong-Guan Ang , Hao-Yang Tan * a b, Psychological Care Centre, Military Medicine Institute, Headquarters Singapore Armed Forces Medical Corps, Singapore a Department of Psychological Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 5 Lower Kent Ridge Road, b Singapore 119074, Singapore Received 3 October 2002; received in revised form 4 August 2003; accepted 16 September 2003 Abstract There has been relatively little study of the longitudinal course of cognitive functioning before the onset of schizophrenia. We report scores from standardized academic examinations at ages 12 and 16 years of 30 male patients with a first episode of schizophrenia (FES) and a normal control group balanced for gender, age, parental socio– economic class and academic scores at age 12. The FES group had greater deterioration in mathematics scores and poorer educational outcome, possibly reflecting neurocognitive changes that preceded the onset of schizophrenia.  2003 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Cognition; Prodrome; Education; Psychosis 1. Introduction Neurocognitive deficit is a key determinant of the functional outcome of schizophrenia, but rela- tively little is known about its neurodevelopmental antecedents (Green et al., 2000), although there is emerging evidence that information processing is one of the earliest markers of vulnerability to schizophrenia (Lieberman et al., 2001). Subtle combinations of social, motor, neurocognitive and intellectual abnormalities associated with function- al deterioration have been described as premorbid or prodromal signs in schizophrenia (Bleuler, *Corresponding author. Tel.: q65-67724511; fax: q65- 67772191. E-mail address: pcmthy@nus.edu.sg (H.-Y. Tan). 1911), and more recently demonstrated at various times during childhood and adolescence in pre- psychotic individuals from large birth cohort stud- ies (Offord, 1974; Done et al., 1994; Jones et al., 1994; Crow et al., 1995; Olin et al., 1995; Cannon et al., 1999, 2002), as well as from cohorts of Israeli (Davidson et al., 1999) and Swedish (David et al., 1997) conscripts. However, there has been less work on cognitive function as measured by standardized academic tests longitudinally across more than one time point before the onset of psychosis, which would add to the evidence that functionally significant cognitive deficits occur before psychosis onset. This may be due to the lack of uniform testing methods across time in a cohort’s academic career.