Adrenarche and the Emotional and Behavioral Problems of Late Childhood

Mental and behavioral disorders increase in prevalence with the passage through puberty. Yet the first symptoms for many children emerge between seven and 11 years, before the pubertal rise in gonadal hormones. A possibility that symptom onset may be linked to the adrenarchal rise in androgens has been little explored.The Childhood to Adolescence Transition Study recruited a stratified random sample of 1,239 eight-nine year olds from primary...