Time of puberty in females and cognitive performance

Biological processes associated with puberty have been researched extensively. However, the relationship between time of puberty in females and cognitive performance remains unclear. Early puberty in females is associated with "female-typical" performance patterns of increased accuracy in verbal and emotional cognition, and decreased performance accuracy in spatial cognition; whereas late puberty is associated with "male-typical" performance of decreased accuracy in verbal and emotional cognition and increased accuracy in spatial cognition. One hundred and sixty-two females, aged 15- 21 years were sampled from the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort database and assigned to three groups; "early puberty" (8-9), "typical puberty" (10-15) and "late puberty" (16-18), based on age at menarche. We hypothesized that "early puberty" females would present "female-typical" performance patterns of increased accuracy in verbal and emotional cognition and decreased accuracy in spatial cognition and that "late puberty" females would present "male-typical" performance patterns of increased accuracy in spatial performance and decreased accuracy in verbal and emotional cognition. Multivariate analyses of variance controlling for race and ethnicity indicated no significant performance difference among the puberty groups; on spatial line orientation, visual object learning, word memory, verbal reasoning, emotional identification, emotional differentiation, age differentiation, conditional exclusion, letter n' back and continuous performance. Regression results indicated a possible influence of demographic variables on female cognition. Overall, results suggest that pubertal timing has little to no effects on cognitive performance in females using the present study's measures. We, however, propose that demographic variables specifically race, ethnicity, and parental education may influence cognitive performance in females.