The question of whether there is a lasting effect of childhood experience on mental health has eluded causal … one standard deviation change in mental health due to idiosyncratic experience at age 9 will still be present three years … later. Extending the analysis, we find such persistence to vary with age at impact, gender, and mental health sub …

's results are robust to the inclusion of controls such as education, IQ, physical health, height, self-esteem, and later …