This is a competing continuation application designed to extend our current research about the adjustment of adopted adolescents, using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Recent analyses of standardized mean differences with the Add Health sample show that adopted adolescents are at higher risk than non-adoptees in most of the domains examined. There are similar proportions of adopted and non-adopted adolescents in the mid range of most outcome variables, but ratios are 3: 1 or greater for adoptees over non-adoptees near the negative tails of outcome variable distributions (e.g., school problems, substance use, and psychological problems). These differences at the extremes help to explain why adoptees are several times more likely to receive mental health counseling than non-adopted peers. Further analyses show that family characteristics and adoption status also predict mental health counseling, beyond what is explained by the extent of adolescents' problems. Critically important next steps are to explain why some adopted adolescents have problems, while others do not, and to determine whether problems evident in adolescence extend into, young adulthood. A new series of questions in Add Health Wave In will make it possible to test key moderators of adoption related experiences, such as neglect and abuse in childhood. We hypothesize that such adverse early life experiences (associated with foster care and later age of adoptive placement) will predict poorer adjustment in adolescents, but that family processes and other relationships will mediate these links. Adoption (with or- without- early trauma) may accelerate or delay timing of key transitions, into young adulthood. Compared with non-adoptees, and those adopted as infants, we hypothesize that adoptees with adverse early life experiences will be more likely to have off time and out of order transitions (e.g., leaving home, schooling, jobs, childbirth), leading to further life course difficulties. Continuation analyses also will examine the development-of adolescent heterosexual relationship formation, fertility- related behavior, and adoptees' searching and contact with birth parents. Understanding the complex relationships among these adoption related experiences, the mediating role of contextual factors, and their influence on adolescent and young adult adjustment, will provide important information to guide adoption practice and policy.
| van Dulmen, Manfred H M; Grotevant, Harold D; Dunbar, Nora et al. (2002) Connecting national survey data with DSM-IV criteria. J Adolesc Health 31:475-81 |
| Miller, B C; Fan, X; Grotevant, H D et al. (2000) Adopted adolescents' overrepresentation in mental health counseling: adoptees' problems or parents' lower threshold for referral? J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 39:1504-11 |
| Miller, B C; Fan, X; Christensen, M et al. (2000) Comparisons of adopted and nonadopted adolescents in a large, nationally representative sample. Child Dev 71:1458-73 |
