BEHAVIOR OF SCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN FROM DRUG-USING FAMILIES

吸毒成瘾在美国妇女中是一个日益严重的问题， 尤其是育龄妇女。 人们普遍认为 吸毒成瘾的母亲所生的孩子有很高的风险， 儿童时期的各种问题和后来的药物滥用，但 对这些儿童的行为特征知之甚少 或者他们生活的家庭环境的类型。 拟议的研究将提供一系列广泛的措施， 大约40名低收入黑人9岁儿童的样本， 产前接触美沙酮，并继续生活在 和亲生母亲一起生活 他们将被对比 一群母亲从未使用过阿片类药物的孩子。 这两组儿童都是在母亲怀孕期间被招募的。 怀孕。 儿童将在各种仪器上进行评估 旨在衡量一般精神和智力 功能以及注意力，运动协调， 和品行障碍 工具将包括以下组合： 临床访谈，家长和教师的问卷调查，以及 直接测试孩子。 另一套工具将评估 家庭环境的优点和缺点可能影响 儿童发育，包括母亲的适应功能、药物 使用，生育态度，情感风格，参与 儿童和控制儿童;家庭结构，压力和 支持;和兄弟行为。 因为在研究过程中对拟议样品进行了广泛研究， 孩子的头两年的生活，数据可以分析看 早期儿童行为模式，早期母亲行为模式， 早期儿童的医疗条件，预测学龄的结果。 这些关于儿童和家庭长期发展的资料将 有助于为后代制定预防性干预计划 开始于婴儿期和幼儿期的吸毒妇女。

Drug addiction is a growing problem among American women, particularly women of childbearing age. 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 will provide a broad range of measures on a sample of approximately 40 low-income black 9-year-old children who were exposed prenatally to methadone and who continue to live in families with their biological mothers. They will be contrasted with a group of children whose mothers never used opioid drugs. Both groups of children were recruited during their mothers' pregnancies. Children will be assessed on a variety of instruments designed to measure general psychiatric and intellectual functioning as well as problems in attention, motor coordination, and conduct disorders. Instruments will include a combination of clinical interviews, questionnaires to parents and teachers, and direct tests of children. Another set of instruments will assess strengths and weaknesses of family environment that might affect child development, including maternal adaptive functioning, drug use, childbearing attitudes, affective style, involvement with child, and control of child; family structures, stresses and supports; and sibling behavior. Because the proposed sample was studied extensively during the children's first two years of life, data can be analyzed to look at patterns of early child behavior, early mother behavior, and early child medical conditions that predict school-age outcome. Such information on child and family development over time will be useful in planning preventive intervention programs for offspring of drug-addicted women that begin during infancy and toddlerhood.