Self-concept, academic performance and behavioral evaluation of the children of alcoholic parents Autoconceito, desempenho escolar e avaliação comportamental de crianças filhas de alcoolistas

OBJECTIVE: It has been shown that being the child of an alcoholic is a risk factor for the development of alcoholism in adulthood. Due to the suffering caused by living with alcoholic parents, other vulnerabilities appear in such children. Among these are low self-esteem, poor academic performance and behavioral problems. This work aims to comparatively evaluate children of alcoholic parents and children of nonalcoholic parents. METHODS: The study design was quasi-experimental, involving two comparison groups. Two groups of 20 children were selected. The groups consisted of 10- to 12-year-old male and female children. One group comprised children of alcoholic parents, whereas the other comprised children of nonalcoholic parents. The self-concepts of these children were evaluated using the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale as well as the Academic Performance Test. Their mothers participated in the study by answering questions related to the behavior of their children on the Rutter A2 scale of Child Behavior. RESULTS: The results showed that the children of alcoholic parents tended to have more negative self-concepts and presented lower academic performance in reading and arithmetic than did children of nonalcoholic parents. Based on the responses given by the mothers, the children of alcoholic parents presented more behavioral problems than did those of nonalcoholic parents. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study confirm those of other studies and call attention to the need to be aware of the potential vulnerabilities of children of alcoholic parents and, especially, to try to minimize such vulnerabilities, thereby altering the course of psychological suffering that can mark their lives.<br>OBJETIVO: A literatura vem mostrando que ser filho de alcoolista é um fator de risco para o desenvolvimento de alcoolismo na idade adulta. Além do sofrimento ocasionado pela convivência com pais alcoolistas, essa condição implica em outras vulnerabilidades para as crianças, como baixo autoconceito, mau desempenho escolar e problemas de comportamento. Este trabalho propõe-se a avaliar comparativamente crianças, filhos de alcoolistas (FA), e filhos de não-alcoolistas (FNA) com relação às variáveis acima citadas. MÉTODOS: O estudo baseia-se na comparação entre grupos, com delineamento denominado quasi experimental. Selecionaram-se dois grupos de 20 crianças, de ambos os sexos, com idades entre 10 e 12 anos, sendo um dos grupos composto por filhos de alcoolistas e o outro por filhos de não-alcoolistas. Estas crianças foram submetidas à avaliação do autoconceito por meio da Escala Infantil Piers-Harris de Autoconceito e do desempenho escolar por meio do Teste de Desempenho Escolar (TDE). As mães destas crianças participaram do estudo respondendo a questões relativas ao comportamento de seus filhos, por meio da Escala Comportamental Infantil A2 de Rutter. RESULTADOS: Os resultados mostraram que filhos de alcoolistas tendem a ter um autoconceito mais negativo e um desempenho escolar inferior nas tarefas de leitura e aritmética quando comparados a filhos de não-alcoolistas. Quanto à percepção das mães, filhos de alcoolistas apresentam mais problemas de comportamento que filhos de não-alcoolistas. CONCLUSÕES: Concluiu-se que os resultados deste trabalho corroboram os de outros estudos e chamam a atenção para a necessidade de se atentar para possíveis vulnerabilidades das crianças filhas de alcoolistas, sobretudo, para tentar minimizá-las alterando a trajetória do sofrimento psicológico, que pode marcar suas vidas

Substance use patterns in 9-10 year olds: Baseline findings from the adolescent brain cognitive development (ABCD) study.

BackgroundThe Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development ™ Study (ABCD Study®) is an open-science, multi-site, prospective, longitudinal study following over 11,800 9- and 10-year-old youth into early adulthood. The ABCD Study aims to prospectively examine the impact of substance use (SU) on neurocognitive and health outcomes. Although SU initiation typically occurs during teen years, relatively little is known about patterns of SU in children younger than 12.MethodsThis study aims to report the detailed ABCD Study® SU patterns at baseline (n = 11,875) in order to inform the greater scientific community about cohort's early SU. Along with a detailed description of SU, we ran mixed effects regression models to examine the association between early caffeine and alcohol sipping with demographic factors, externalizing symptoms and parental history of alcohol and substance use disorders (AUD/SUD).Primary resultsAt baseline, the majority of youth had used caffeine (67.6 %) and 22.5 % reported sipping alcohol (22.5 %). There was little to no reported use of other drug categories (0.2 % full alcohol drink, 0.7 % used nicotine, &lt;0.1 % used any other drug of abuse). Analyses revealed that total caffeine use and early alcohol sipping were associated with demographic variables (p's&lt;.05), externalizing symptoms (caffeine p = 0002; sipping p = .0003), and parental history of AUD (sipping p = .03).ConclusionsABCD Study participants aged 9-10 years old reported caffeine use and alcohol sipping experimentation, but very rare other SU. Variables linked with early childhood alcohol sipping and caffeine use should be examined as contributing factors in future longitudinal analyses examining escalating trajectories of SU in the ABCD Study cohort