A sample of 600 Black subjects (300 male; 300 female), 24 to 26 years of age, will be selected by randomization from over 3,000 Black subjects of the Philadelphia sample of the National Collaborative Perinatal Project. Extensive prospective data, collected on these subjects from birth to seven years of age, and on their mothers, will be available for use as independent variables to predict to later school failure (dropping out from high school, and to later career failure). Additional retrospective data is planned to be collected from the subject on: (1) their substance use/abuse, up to the time they dropped out, or up to their 16th birthday, if they did not drop out, to predict to dropping out of high school; and (2) on other types of earlier life variables that might predict to school and career failure (i.e., school, family, peer relationship, delinquent behavior, personality traits and attitudes). Prospective school records will be available from the Philadelphia School District as well. Statistical analyses would determine whether the amount of additional variance in school failure, and in career failure, accounted for by substance use/abuse, (in addition to the variance accounted for by the other relevant predictors (control variables), is statistically significant).
| Friedman, A S; Kramer, S; Kreisher, C (1999) Childhood predictors of violent behavior. J Clin Psychol 55:843-55 |
