Biobehavioral Aspects of Precocious Puberty

Precocious puberty is an experiment in nature from which we can learn about the effects of early and continuous exposure to sex steroids on human behavior. We studied the relationships between behavior problems, brain lesions, height, and two measures of sex steroid exposure in 77 children with precocious puberty. Behavior problems were assessed using the Child Behavior Checklist. We found that the diagnosis of precocious puberty regardless of the etiology was a risk factor for increased behavior problems. Although there may be important effects related to environmental and psychological variables, we found that older girls with idiopathic precocious puberty who looked closer to expected peer height and who had less pubic hair had more behavior problems.