This project has a three-fold focus; a) to document patterns of coping and trouble making in early and middle childhood among children from the high risk environment of the alcoholic family, and to identify patterns of adaptation and of failure over these years; b) to contrast such patterns o( functioning with those existing in families where there is not an alcoholic father, and c) to initiate the process of tracing out developmental patterns of symptomatology and coping related to heightened risk for later alcohol abuse in adolescence and adulthood. The research team of psychologists and pediatric staff has two types of families under scrutiny: 1) those with alcoholic fathers - a population generated sample of drunk driver fathers who are alcoholic (children at high risk for later alcohol dependency and for antisocial behavior): and a contrast group of 2) nonalcoholic families drawn from the same census tracts as the Group 1 families. Such families are sociodemographically equivalent but lower in risk for later alcoholic outcome. Target children for the work are sons in these families, initially between the ages of 3 and 6. Set within the context of a longer term longitudinal study, the present application covers child functioning between the ages of 3 and 9. The project strategy is to use a combination of types of data that examine the contribution of relevant parent and child influences, and their interaction, upon a) the development of children's antisocial behavior, b) competency in interaction with peers, parents and teachers, and c) the early development of knowledge about alcoholic beverages, and attitudes and expectancies about their own eventual use/nonuse. In the process of charting these patterns of development, the longitudinal study lays the groundwork for establishment of early markers of high risk for alcoholism and for invulnerability to such outcome.
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