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This study examines the effects of intervention during the elementary grades on changes in school bonding from middle school through high school, using hierarchical linear modeling. Findings suggest that social development interventions through elementary school can have positive long-term effects on school bonding and demonstrate the importance of long-term follow-up studies of preventive interventions. (Author)

Examined the long-term effects of an intervention for elementary students in high-crime urban areas. The intervention combined teacher training, parent education, and social competence training in an effort to reduce health-risk behaviors at age 18. Self-reports showed reduced rates of violent behavior, heavy drinking, and sexual intercourse at age 18 compared to controls. (EV)

Objective: This study examined the association between age at alcohol use onset and adult alcohol misuse and dependence by testing the sensitive-period hypothesis that early adolescence (11-14) is a vulnerable period of development during which initiating alcohol use is particularly harmful. Method: Data came from a longitudinal panel of 808 participants recruited in 1981. Participants were followed through age 33 in 2008 with 92% retention. Results: Onset of alcohol use before age 11 (late childhood), when compared with initiation during early adolescence, was related to an increased chronicity of adult alcohol dependence, even after accounting for sociodemographic controls and other substance use in adolescence. The present study finds no evidence that early adolescence is a particularly sensitive period for the onset of alcohol use. Findings related to the onset of regular alcohol use and the chronicity of alcohol dependence suggest that the onset of regular drinking before age 21 is problematic, but no one adolescent period is more sensitive than others. Specifically, although all age groups that started drinking regularly before age 21 had a greater rate of alcohol dependence in adulthood, initiation of regular use of alcohol at or before age 14 was not related to greater chronicity of alcohol dependence than the initiation of regular use of alcohol in middle or late adolescence. Conclusions: The findings suggest the importance of delaying the onset of alcohol use through prevention efforts as early as the elementary grades. In addition, prevention efforts should focus on preventing the onset of regular drinking before age 21. (J. Stud Alcohol Drugs, 72, 221-231, 2011), NATIONAL DATA INDICATE that almost one in four U.S. high school students began drinking alcohol before they entered high school (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2008), yet adolescent drinking [...]

This research examined the longitudinal relationship between positive functioning and alcohol-use disorders from late adolescence into young adulthood. Method: This study used prospective, longitudinal data from the Seattle Social Development Project on a contemporary sample of 808 young adult men and women interviewed multiple times since childhood. The analysis employed a longitudinal path analysis to examine the relationship between positive functioning and alcohol-use disorders across four time points between ages 15-18 and age 27. Results: Positive functioning and alcohol-use disorders showed moderately strong continuity from adolescence through young adulthood. Positive functioning in adolescence predicts reduced likelihood of a diagnosis of alcohol abuse and dependence (as defined in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition) at age 21, and positive functioning at age 21 predicts reduced likelihood of alcohol abuse and dependence at age 24 in this sample. These findings remain even after controlling for continuity in positive functioning and alcohol-use disorders, associations between positive functioning and alcohol use in adolescence, and sociodemographic differences attributable to gender, race/ethnicity, and poverty. Conclusions: Positive functioning in adolescence and early adulthood can decrease the probability of developing alcohol-use disorders in young adulthood. The data from this study suggest that promoting positive development in childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood should be a focus of programs seeking to prevent alcohol abuse and dependence. Providing continued support for the development of positive functioning through the transition from adolescence to adulthood could decrease the chance of the development of alcohol-use disorders in adulthood., ADOLESCENT ALCOHOL USE has been a concern for alcohol researchers and a target for prevention programs because it greatly increases the risk of alcohol-use disorders in young adulthood, particularly with [...]

Objective: This study examined the association of trajectories of heavy episodic drinking (at least five alcoholic drinks on one occasion) during adolescence with health status and practices at age 24. Method: Semiparametric group-based modeling and logistic regressions were used to analyze data from a longitudinal panel of 808 youths interviewed between 10 and 24 years of age. Results: Four distinct trajectories of adolescent heavy episodic drinking were identified: nonheavy drinkers, late onsetters, escalators and chronic heavy drinkers. Overall, young adults who did not engage in heavy episodic drinking during adolescence had the lowest occurrence of health problems and were most likely to engage in safe health behaviors at age 24. Chronic and late-onset heavy episodic drinking during adolescence had negative effects on health status and practices at age 24. Adolescent chronic heavy drinkers were more likely to be overweight or obese and to have high blood pressure at age 24 than those who did not drink heavily in adolescence. Late-onset heavy drinkers were less likely to engage in safe driving practices at age 24 and were more likely to have been ill in the past year than adolescents who did not drink heavily. These health disparities remained even after current frequency of heavy episodic drinking at age 24, other adolescent drug use, ethnicity, gender and family poverty were controlled. Conclusions: Heavy episodic alcohol use during adolescence has long-term, negative health consequences. Distinct patterns of adolescent heavy drinking affect health status and practices in young adulthood differently. (J Stud. Alcohol 65: 204-212, 2004), DRINKING at least five alcoholic drinks on one occasion (called heavy episodic or binge drinking by some; Kandel, 1980; White, 1987; Zucker and Gomberg, 1986) is a relatively common behavior [...]

Previous research has shown heterogeneity in offense trajectories. Using data from the Seattle Social Development Project, a longitudinal study of 808 youths followed since 1985, this study seeks to identify childhood predictors of different offense trajectories. Five offense trajectories were identified using semiparametric, group-based modeling: nonoffenders, late onsetters, desisters, escalators, and chronic offenders. Multinomial logistic regressions were then employed to examine childhood predictors measured at ages 10 to 12 that distinguish these five groups. Results indicated that among initial nonoffenders at age 13, late onsetters were distinguished from nonoffenders by individual factors. Among youth already delinquent at age 13, escalators were distinguished from desisters by peer, school, and neighborhood factors.

Objective: To provide a comprehensive examination of childhood and adolescent predictors of alcohol abuse and dependence at age 21, theoretically guided by the social development model. Method: Data were taken from an ethnically diverse urban sample of 808 students (51% male), surveyed at age 10 and followed prospectively to age 21 in 1996. Potential predictors of alcohol abuse and dependence at age 21 were measured at ages 10, 14 and 16. Relationships between these predictors and alcohol abuse and dependence were examined at each age, to assess changes in their patterns of prediction over time. Results: Strong bonding to school, close parental monitoring of children and clearly defined family rules for behavior, appropriate parental rewards for good behaviors, high level of refusal skills and strong belief in the moral order predicted a lower risk for alcohol abuse and dependence at age 21. Of these, strong bonding to school consistently predicted lower alcohol abuse and dependence from all three ages (10, 14 and 16). By contrast, youths who had a higher risk of alcohol abuse and dependence at age 21 engaged in more problem behaviors, had more opportunities to be involved with antisocial individuals and spent more time with and were more bonded to those individuals, viewed fewer negative consequences from antisocial behaviors and held more favorable views on alcohol use. Of these, prior problem behaviors and antisocial opportunities and involvements at ages 10, 14 and 16 consistently predicted alcohol abuse and dependence at age 21. Conclusions: These important malleable predictors, identifiable as early as age 10, provide potential intervention targets for the prevention of alcohol abuse and dependence in early adulthood. (J. Stud. Alcohol 62: 754-762, 2001), AMONG ADOLESCENTS, alcohol is the most commonly used psychoactive drug. The 1999 Monitoring the Future national survey of secondary school students found that approximately 52% of 8th grade students, 71% [...]

Objective: This study examines whether the age of initiation of alcohol use mediates the effects of other variables that predict alcohol misuse among adolescents and also whether the age of initiation of alcohol use accounts for known gender differences in the severity of alcohol misuse. Method: Data were taken from an ethnically diverse sample of 808 (412 male) students who were recruited in grade 5 at age 10-11 and followed prospectively on an annual basis for the next 7 years to age 17-18. State-of-the-art missing data methodology was used to address nonresponse due to noninitiation of alcohol use. Structural equation modeling was used to examine hypotheses for the prediction of alcohol misuse. Results: A younger age of alcohol initiation was strongly related to a higher level of alcohol misuse at age 17-18 and fully mediated the effects of parent drinking, proactive parenting, school bonding, peer alcohol initiation and ethnicity, all measured at age 10-11, and perceived harmfulness of alcohol use, measured at age 10-11 and age 11-12. However, age of alcohol initiation did not fully account for gender differences in the level of alcohol misuse at age 17-18. To further examine the role of gender, interactions between gender and school bonding, and gender and friend's alcohol initiation, were evaluated. However, neither of the interaction terms had direct effects on either age of initiation or level of alcohol-related problems. Conclusions: Most measured risk factors for alcohol misuse were mediated through age of alcohol initiation. Only gender differences in alcohol misuse at age 17-18 were not mediated by age of alcohol initiation. Variables associated with these differences require further study. The results of this study indicate the importance of prevention strategies to delay the age of initiation of alcohol use. (J. Stud Alcohol 58: 280-290, 1997), The younger the age at which adolescents initiate alcohol use, the more likely they are to experience alcohol-related problems by late adolescence, according to a 7.5-year study that monitored the drinking behavior of 808 students from age 10-11 to age 17-18. The study also concluded that various psychological and social factors, such as parental drinking, alcohol use by peers and positive parenting techniques, affect the age at which adolescents initiate alcohol use. Gender was the only factor studied that showed a direct unmediated relationship with alcohol abuse at age 17-18., Recent reviews of predictors of alcohol and other drug misuse by adolescents have indicated that an early age of initiation is an important precursor to later misuse (e.g., Hawkins et [...]

The Work Preference Inventory (WPI) is designed to assess individual differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivational orientations. Both the college student and the working adult versions aim to capture the major elements of intrinsic motivation (self-determination, competence, task involvement, curiosity, enjoyment, and interest) and extrinsic motivation (concerns with competition, evaluation, recognition, money or other tangible incentives, and constraint by others). The instrument is scored on two primary scales, each subdivided into 2 secondary scales. The WPI has meaningful factor structures, adequate internal consistency, good short-term test-retest reliability, and good longer term stability. Moreover, WPI scores are related in meaningful ways to other questionnaire and behavioral measures of motivation, as well as personality characteristics, attitudes, and behaviors.