ADOLESCENTS FROM DRUG-USING FAMILIES

虽然公众对产前暴露的影响非常关注 对于非法药物可能对儿童发育产生的影响，很少有研究 已经跟踪了有记录的接触史的儿童 几个月的生命。人们普遍认为，吸毒成瘾的孩子 母亲在儿童时期和儿童时期患各种问题的风险很高 后来滥用药物，但对行为学知之甚少 这些儿童的特征或中国家庭环境的类型 他们生活的地方。 建议的研究包括对37个城市的样本进行评估。 14岁的非裔美国人，他们在产前接触过 阿片类药物。他们将与人口统计上相似的 一组41名儿童，其母亲在 她们怀孕的时间。以前对这些儿童的评估是在 10岁时建议接触阿片类药物的儿童--特别是阿片类药物 暴露的男孩--根据测试结果显示出注意力缺陷的迹象 持续关注的计算机化任务，尽管事实是 他们与样本中的其他儿童在以下方面没有区别 一般智力功能。在拟议的青少年后续行动中， 儿童将接受更广泛的临床治疗 神经心理学对注意力的评估，以进一步阐明其性质 暴露于阿片类药物的儿童中存在的注意力问题。 此外，随着儿童进入年龄特别高的时期 吸毒、性行为和犯罪行为的风险，各种 将对心理社会功能进行评估。 还将对儿童的社会环境和 与家庭成员的关系，以确定哪些因素对 在这个样本中，发育风险和恢复力非常高。是这样的 随着时间的推移，有关儿童和家庭发展的信息将在 为吸毒成瘾的子女规划预防性干预计划 妇女和其他高危城市儿童。

While there is great public concern about the effects prenatal exposure to illicit drugs may have on the development of children, few studies have followed children with documented exposure histories past the first months of life. It is widely assumed that children born to drug-addicted mothers are at high risk for a variety of problems during childhood and for later drug abuse, but little is known about behavioral characteristics of these children or the types of family environments in which they live. The proposed research involves assessment of a sample of 37 urban African-American 14-year-old children who were exposed prenatally to opioid drugs. They will be contrasted with a demographically similar group of 41 children whose mothers had no history of opioid drug use at the time of their pregnancies. Previous assessments of these children at age 10 suggested that opioid-exposed children -- particularly opioid exposed boys -- showed signs of attention deficit as measured on computerized tasks of sustained attention, despite that the fact that they did not differ from other children in the sample in terms of their general intellectual functioning. In the proposed adolescent follow-up, children will be administered a more extensive battery of clinical neuropsychological assessments of attention to further clarify the nature of the attention problems present in the opioid-exposed children. Additionally, as the children enter the age period of particularly high risk for drug use, sexual activity, and delinquent behavior, a variety of assessments of psychosocial functioning will be administered. Assessments will also be made of the children's social environments and relationships with family members to determine what factors contribute to developmental risk and resiliency in this sample at very high risk. Such information on child and family development over time will be useful in planning preventive intervention programs for offspring of drug-addicted women and other high-risk urban children.