A Longitudinal Study of Adopted Youth and Their Families

描述(由申请人提供)：一项针对400个收养家庭和200个非收养家庭的纵向研究被提出，以应对最近旨在确定环境对心理适应的影响的研究的批评。具体地说，我们试图证实共同的环境对青少年问题行为的影响的存在，确定他们是否发展稳定，并阐明其影响下的特定兄弟姐妹和父母因素。参与的家庭将由青少年兄弟姐妹和父母组成，他们在拟议的后续行动前三年完成了广泛的面对面心理健康和心理评估。亲身跟踪评估将侧重于兄弟姐妹及其主要照顾者，并与摄入量评估密切平行，包括：1)精神健康，2)药物使用和滥用，3)行为证据，4)家庭和兄弟姐妹关系，5)具体收养风险因素，6)个人水平风险因素，7)其他环境风险和保护因素，8)人口统计因素。数据分析的重点将是：1)使用标准的行为遗传模型估计共享环境影响的强度，2)确定父母的特征是否与收养家庭的青少年结局有关，在收养家庭中，遗传中介受到控制，3)测试基于“合法化”概念的兄弟姐妹效应的发展模型，以及4)确定特定的环境因素是否加剧了个人层面的风险因素。我们庞大的、具有代表性的被收养青少年样本也为我们提供了一个前所未有的机会，让我们严格探索被收养的人在婴儿期的适应情况。在这方面，我们特别感兴趣的是被收养的个人相对于未被收养的个人的调整，收养特有的风险因素对被收养者适应的贡献，以及年龄对被收养者对出生背景和种族认同的担忧的影响。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A longitudinal study of 400 adoptive and 200 nonadoptive families is proposed to address recent critiques of research aimed at identifying environmental influences on psychological adjustment. Specifically, we seek to confirm the existence of shared environmental influences on adolescent problem behavior, determine whether they are developmentally stable, and explicate the specific sibling and parent factors that underlie their effect. Participating families will consist of adolescent sibling pairs and parents who completed an extensive in-person mental health and psychological assessment three years prior to the proposed follow-up. The in-person follow-up assessment will focus on the siblings and their primary caregivers and closely parallel the intake assessment by including: 1) mental health, 2) substance use and abuse, 3) behavioral Jeviance, 4) family and sibling relations, 5) adoption-specific risk factors, 6) individual-level risk factors, 7) other environmental risk and protective factors, and 8) demographic factors. The focus of the data analysis will be on: 1) estimating the strength of shared environmental influences using standard behavioral genetic models, 2) determining whether parent characteristics are associated with adolescent outcome in adoptive families, where genetic mediation is controlled, 3) testing a developmental model of sibling effects based on the notion of "legitimization", and 4) determining whether specific environmental factors potentiate individual-level risk factors. Our large, representative sample of adopted adolescents also gives us an unprecedented opportunity to rigorously explore the adjustment of adopted individuals who had been placed in infancy. In this regard, we are especially interested in the adjustment of adopted individuals relative to nonadopted individuals, the contribution of adoption-specific risk factors to adoptee adjustment, and the effect of age on adoptees' concerns about birth background and ethnic identification.