Adolescent substance use disorders: findings from a 14-year follow-up of speech/language-impaired and control children. |
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Authors: | J H Beitchman L Douglas B Wilson C Johnson A Young L Atkinson M Escobar N Taback |
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Institution: | Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. beitchmanj@cs.clarke-inst.on.ca |
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Abstract: | Intervening on the development of adolescent addiction requires an understanding of the role of precursors. In a community sample of youth with and without early childhood speech/language (S/L) impairments, 12.7% of participants had a substance use disorder (SUD). Among these participants, 42.0% met criteria for more than 1 SUD. Interestingly, rates of SUDs did not differ by S/L status. However, S/L-impaired participants did show greater psychiatric comorbidity and poorer functioning. A total of 80% of S/L participants with SUDs had a concurrent diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, compared with 43.8% of SUDs controls. In a logistic regression analysis, we found age 5 mother-rated problem behavior scores and an interaction between S/L status and teacher-rated conduct problem scores were predictive of SUDs. High conduct scores were predictive of SUDs development among control participants but not among S/L-impaired participants. First substance use and initial SUDs symptoms suggest that a window of opportunity exists to reach these troubled young people before they spiral into addiction. |
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