Performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test among adolescents in Taiwan: Norms, factorial structure, and relation to schizotypy

The aims of this study were to assess developmental trends in performance o n the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) among 817 randomly selected adoles cents aged 13-15 years, and to explore WCST performance factor structure an d relationship to schizotypy. The results showed that of the nine WCST inde xes, only the Categories Achieved and Failure to Maintain Set scores were a ssociated with age, and only the Learning to Learn scores reached adult lev els. Factor analysis of WCST performance scores yielded a three-factor stru cture. Psychometrically defined schizotypic subjects did not perform signif icantly worse than control subjects on any WCST indexes. These findings sug gest that performance on various WCST indexes might indicate developmental changes at different ages, and deficits in WCST performance might not be se nsitive indicators of vulnerability to schizophrenia in adolescence.