One of the products of the deinstitutionalization movement has been large increase in the number of group homes for the treatment of delinquent adolescents. This development and expansion of group-home treatment has taken place with almost no information about what happens to the youths who attend group homes. Should society be concerned about these youths? Are they a group at high risk of becoming adult with high levels of criminal, violent, and antisocial behavior as well as personnel problems such as drug and alcohol abuse? Or do the group-home youths eventually integrate into the social system and become behaviorally indistinct from other young adults? Two studies are proposed. They are designed to examine the course of development during adolescence and young adulthood of high-risk male youths who were committed to group-home treatment programs because of their serious behavior problems. The studies and their aims are as follows. Study I will: (1) Assess whether former participants in Teaching- Family and non-Teaching-Family group homes have differential outcomes during late adolescence of young adulthood. (2) Determine whether the Teaching-Family approach, with its social skill, family-life-skill training components, has differential effects on spouse and child relationships. Study II will: (1) Assess whether the antisocial and other dysfunctional behaviors of group-home youths are durable over time or instead diminish, perhaps becoming not different during young adulthood from those of normative national probability sample. (2) Establish if the study sample of formally adjudicated youths is at risk of a """"""""deviancy syndrome"""""""" of serious problems such as frequent drug and alcohol use and abuse, chronic unemployment, spouse abuse, victimization, poor physical and mental health, institutionalization, continued arrests, poor relationships with mate, peers, and families. (3) Determine the extent to which the youths report handicapping problems occurring in their own children. The significance of the proposed studies is that they may help mental health policy makers understand the long-term impact of the Teaching-Family approach as well as the long-term risk of group-home youths to society and themselves.
| Eyler, Lisa T; Prom-Wormley, Elizabeth; Fennema-Notestine, Christine et al. (2011) Genetic patterns of correlation among subcortical volumes in humans: results from a magnetic resonance imaging twin study. Hum Brain Mapp 32:641-53 |
