3-8 Several studies suggest that schizophrenic patients have lower IQ scores measured before the onset of schizophrenia (premorbid IQ) than would be expected based on family and environmental variables. These deficits can be detected during childhood and increase with age. Catherine Gilvarry and colleagues‡

investigated whether this was also the case with patients diagnosed with affective psychosis, which encompasses schizoaffective disorder, mania, and major depression. In addition, they also wanted to assess whether any IQ deficits could be detected in first-degree relatives (parents, siblings, and children) of patients with affective psychosis. They administered the National Adult Reading Test (NART), which is an indicator of premorbid IQ, to a set of patients with affective psychosis, their firstdegree relatives, and a group of normal subjects without any psychiatric history. Gilvarry and colleagues also