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Biomedical subjects

H E Fitzgerald

Publications and source records attributed to H E Fitzgerald.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Parental alcoholism and co-occurring antisocial behavior: prospective relationships to externalizing behavior problems in their young sons.

The hypothesis that parental alcoholism and co-occurring antisocial behavior would be indirectly linked to child externalizing behavior problems through child lack of control, current levels of parent depression, family conflict, and parent-child conflict was tested using manifest variable regression analysis. Participants were a community sample of 125 families with an alcoholic father and 83 ecologically matched but nonsubstance abusing families involved in the first 2 waves of an ongoing longitudinal study (with 3 years between each wave). All families had a biological son who was 3-5 years old at study onset. Results revealed that child lack of control mediated the relation between paternal alcoholism and the son's subsequent externalizing behavior problems. Family conflict was a significant mediator of maternal and paternal lifetime antisocial behavior effects and father-son conflict mediated paternal lifetime antisocial behavior effects. Study implications are discussed within the context of parental socialization of antisocial behavior.

Alcoholism↗
PubMed2000

Serotonergic function, behavioral disinhibition, and negative affect in children of alcoholics: the moderating effects of puberty.

BACKGROUND: Serotonergic (5-HT) dysfunction has been implicated in both behavioral disinhibition and negative affect in adults. Although our group's previous work found decreased whole blood 5-HT in high versus low behavior problem children of alcoholics, some child/adolescent studies report conflicting results, and 5-HT's role in negative affect has been largely unexamined. Age-related developmental factors may play a role in these relationships. METHODS: This report is from an ongoing prospective study of the development of risk for alcohol abuse/dependence and other problematic outcomes in a sample of families subtyped by father's alcoholism classification. The present study extends previous work and examines relationships between whole blood 5-HT and both child behavioral disinhibition (an aggression index from the Child Behavior Checklist) and negative affect (Child Behavior Checklist Anxious/Depressed scale) in offspring from 47 families (N = 45 boys and 17 girls; mean age = 10.88+/-2.03 yr). RESULTS: The most important finding was that puberty moderated relationships between 5-HT and both behavioral disinhibition and negative affect with a relationship for pubescent children (n = 14, r = -0.54, p = 0.05: r = -0.57,p = 0.04, respectively) but no relationship for prepubescent children (n = 48, r = 0.05, p = 0.75; r = -0.15, p = 0.31, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: The moderating effects of puberty may help clarify inconsistencies in child/adolescent literature. Furthermore, there appears to be a relationship between 5-HT and negative affect which parallels that between 5-HT and behavioral disinhibition. Pubertal status may be an important variable to evaluate as a moderator in relation to the developmental context of the role 5-HT dysfunction may play in various models of behavior related to alcoholism over the early life course.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Intellectual, cognitive, and academic performance among sons of alcoholics, during the early school years: differences related to subtypes of familial alcoholism.

BACKGROUND: Research on intellectual and cognitive functioning of children of alcoholics has been marked by inconsistency, with some studies unable to document deficits. This discrepancy may reflect the substantial heterogeneity found in the alcoholic population and among families of alcoholics. The current study sought to examine the effects of familial alcoholism subtypes on intellectual, cognitive, and academic performance in early school-aged sons of alcoholics. METHODS: Subjects for the present study were 198 elementary-age boys who were participants in the larger MSU-UM Longitudinal Study. Familial alcoholism subtypes were determined based on fathers' alcoholism and antisocial personality disorder diagnoses. Intellectual functioning was measured with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R); academic achievement was measured with the Wide Range Achievement Test-Revised. In addition, Mazes and Freedom from Distractability factor scores of the WISC-R were used to assess abstract planning and attention abilities. RESULTS: Children of antisocial alcoholics (AALs) displayed the worst IQ and academic achievement compared with children of nonantisocial alcoholics (NAALs) and controls. In addition, children of AALs displayed relatively poorer abstract planning and attention abilities compared with children from control families. Regression analyses revealed that familial alcoholism subtype continued to account for variance in child intellectual ability even when other factors were excluded. CONCLUSIONS: Findings indicate that children from AAL families are most susceptible to relative intellectual, cognitive, and academic deficits. The study further supports the proposition that familial risk characteristics (i.e., paternal alcoholism and antisociality) may serve as effective indicators of family risk for poor intellectual outcome among offspring as early as the elementary school years.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Heterogeneity of risk aggregation for alcohol problems between early and middle childhood: nesting structure variations.

We examined how family and child risk factors jointly affected stability and change in externalizing behavior over time in a prospective study of eventual alcohol use disorder. Study participants were community-recruited alcoholic and control families, and their initially preschool-aged male and female children (N = 335). Family risk varied as a function of both parental alcoholism (ALC) and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and was evaluated for both parents. Child risk was characterized by a set of risky temperament attributes pertaining to high activity, high reactivity, and low attention span. Externalizing behavior was used as the proxy indicator for later alcohol problems. For children in the high family risk group (involving current ALC in both parents or current ALC + ASPD comorbidity or both), child risk when children were 3-5 years old (Wave 1) directly predicted externalizing behavior when children were 6-8 years old (Wave 2), even when Wave 1 child risk was controlled for. In addition, parents' negative interaction with children at Wave 1 mediated the effect of child risky temperament on Wave 2 externalizing behavior. No such pattern was observed in the low family risk group, where only autostability effects were predictive of outcomes at Wave 2. The importance of nesting structure as an ingredient in the epigenesis of risk was discussed. Its particular relevance in understanding the process of risk transmission among offspring from antisocial alcoholic families was emphasized.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Early family-based intervention in the path to alcohol problems: rationale and relationship between treatment process characteristics and child and parenting outcomes.

OBJECTIVE: Risk for subsequent development of alcohol problems is not uniform across the population of alcoholic families, but varies with parental comorbidity and family history. Recent studies have also identified disruptive child behavior problems in the preschool years as predictive of alcoholism in adulthood. Given the quality of risk structure in highest risk families, prevention programming is more appropriately family based rather than individual. METHOD: A family-based intervention program for the prevention of conduct problems among preschool-age sons of alcoholic fathers was implemented to change this potential mediating risk structure. A population-based recruitment strategy enrolled 52 alcoholic families in a 10-month intervention involving parent training and marital problem solving. The study examined the interplay between parent treatment investment and parent and therapist expectations and satisfaction in predicting change in child behavior and authoritative parenting style during the program, and for 6 months afterward among the 29 families whose sustained involvement allowed these effects to be evaluated. RESULTS: Parent expectations at pretreatment influenced their early investment in the program, which in turn predicted child and parenting outcomes. Parent and therapist satisfaction ratings during treatment were associated with one another and with expectations that the program would continue to promote changes in their child. Parent investment was a particularly salient influence on outcome, as higher investment throughout the program was associated with improvement in child behavior and authoritative parenting at termination. CONCLUSIONS: Findings indicate that treatment process characteristics mediate the influence of baseline parent functioning on treatment success and that treatment changes themselves predict later child outcomes.

Alcoholism↗
PubMed1998

Overt behavior problems and serotonergic function in middle childhood among male and female offspring of alcoholic fathers.

A large body of literature indicates that the serotonergic system is involved in behavioral regulation, as evidenced by the inverse relationship between impulsive aggression and serotonergic function found in adult alcoholics and nonalcoholics. However, studies of this relationship among child and adolescent offspring of alcoholics (COAs) have not previously been done. This study examines the potentially parallel relationship between behavioral dysregulation and low serotonergic function in young COAs. The relationship is of potential interest as a phenotypic marker of biological vulnerability to aggressiveness, which itself has been hypothesized to be a risk factor for later antisocial alcoholism. The present work is part of an ongoing prospective study of the development of risk for alcohol abuse/dependence and other problematic outcomes in a sample of families subtyped by the fathers' alcoholism classification. We examined the relationship between overt behavior problems in middle childhood (mean age = 10.5 +/- 1.7 years) and whole blood serotonin (5-HT) in a subsample of the offspring (N = 32 boys and 12 girls). Using a Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) index of behavioral undercontrol, we obtained results indicating that high total behavior problem (TBP) children had lower levels of whole blood 5-HT than did low-TBP children (p < 0.01). These results support the hypothesis that there is an inverse relationship between whole blood serotonin levels and behavior problems in young male and female COAs. A father's alcoholism status was not significantly related to his child's 5-HT level, i.e., the child's phenotypic expression of behavioral dysregulation was more reliably connected to serotonergic function than was paternal alcoholism.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Behavioral outcomes among children of alcoholics during the early and middle childhood years: familial subtype variations.

This study examined early behavioral outcomes among young children of alcoholics (COAs) as a function of differences in subtype of paternal alcoholism. Participants were 212 children (106 girls and 106 boys, ages 3 through 8) and both of their biological parents. Families were characterized as antisocial alcoholics, nonantisocial alcoholics, and nonalcoholic controls. There were significant familial subtype group differences on parent report measures of children's total behavior problems, externalizing behavior, and internalizing behavior, and on measures of children's intellectual functioning and academic achievement. In all instances, COAs had poorer functioning than controls. In the behavior problem domain, but not for the domain of intellectual functioning, children from antisocial alcoholic families had greater problems than children from nonantisocial alcoholic families. In addition to the subtype effects, boys had higher levels of behavior problems than girls in all three areas, and older children had more internalizing problems than younger children. Maternal functioning pertaining to lifetime alcohol problem involvement and antisocial behavior also contributed to child subtype differences in internalizing behavior. Results indicate that, even at very early ages, male and female COAs are heterogeneous populations that are distinguishable by way of familial subtype membership, as well as distinguishable from their non-COA peers. Thus, findings underscore the need to consider the heterogeneity of alcoholism when looking at its effects on child development.

Alcoholism↗
PubMed1997

Conceptualizing and scaling the developmental structure of behavior disorder: the Lifetime Alcohol Problems Score as an example.

We contrast the current, clinically based framework for behavior disorder against a life course framework, as an alternative structure upon which to map the variations in onset and stability of clinical symptomatology known to take place in adult life. This alternative developmental framework is used as a base around which to understand known variations in rates of alcohol abuse/dependence over the life course and to review existing schemes for the evaluation of developmental variation in "caseness." From this work, it was proposed that symptom structure be regarded as a mass of greater or lesser breadth, with properties of extensiveness in time and life course invasiveness, as a function of where in the life course the symptomatology first emerged, and the degree to which the mass sustained itself in developmental time. This framework guided the construction of a time-based measure of alcohol related symptomatology, called the Lifetime Alcohol Problems Score (LAPS). The LAPS discriminated among a variety of alcohol-specific and nonalcohol-specific measures of alcohol-related difficulty, including diagnosis of alcohol dependence, having been in treatment, level of other psychopathology, and measures of family disorganization. The measure has potential applicability for prospective studies, and in estimating clinical prognosis. The utility of the paradigm as a framework within which to conceptualize the emergence, ebb, and flow of other behavior disorders is also discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Articulating subtype differences in self and relational experience among alcoholic men using structural analysis of social behavior.

L. Benjamin's (1984) structural analysis of social behavior (SASB) system was used as the organizing framework within which to characterize the phenomenology of self and other relationship experience among subtypes of alcoholic men. Within the context of a community-based study of psychopathology, groups of antisocial alcoholic (AAL), nonantisocial alcoholic (NAAL), and nonalcoholic (control) men completed ratings of their introject (self-concept) and spousal experience. Group differences in demography and psychopathology provided strong support for subtype variations among alcoholic men that could not be attributed to global differences in adaptive functioning. SASB data showed consistency in circumplex ordering across the groups in ratings of self-experience and in ratings of the spousal relationship. AAL men were the most self-neglecting, blaming, and least trusting, and control men were the most relationally connected, with NAAL men falling in between. Despite the importance of the subtyping distinction, in some areas, alcoholism, regardless of subtype, was the core differentiating factor.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Early intervention in the path to alcohol problems through conduct problems: treatment involvement and child behavior change.

A program for the prevention of conduct problems among preschool-age sons of alcoholic fathers was implemented to interrupt what is likely to be a major mediating factor in the development of alcoholism in later years. A population-based sample of 42 families participated in a 10-month intervention involving parent training and marital problem solving. Differences in treatment outcome were examined, with the expectation that level of treatment involvement--entailing both level of participation and level of investment--would account for variability in child outcome at termination. Significant changes in positive and negative child behaviors were observed only within the group of families who completed the program and where the mothers demonstrated a higher level of treatment investment. When pretreatment child, parent, and family predictors of child behavior change were accounted for, subsequent analyses identified maternal treatment investment as a significant predictor of child outcome.

Alcoholism↗
PubMed1995

Parent-child interactions in alcoholic and nonalcoholic families.

A community-recruited sample of alcoholic and nonalcoholic families was videotaped in a standardized play task involving parents and their preschool-aged sons. Microanalyses revealed that alcoholic families had lower dyadic synchrony, that parents were viewed as less able to engage their children, and that the coders liked the control parents and children more. Variations in the parent-child interactions are discussed.

Child of Impaired Parents↗
PubMed1995

Alcohol schema acquisition in preschoolers: differences between children of alcoholics and children of nonalcoholics.

Cognitive schemas provide the structure within which children organize their knowledge and beliefs about the use of alcohol. The development of schemas about alcohol should be affected both by age and parental patterns of alcohol use. We examined differences in alcohol schema development among 139 male children of alcoholics (COAs) and 82 controls [children of nonalcoholics (NCOAs)] utilizing the Appropriate Beverage Task as an indicator of these processes. Overall, the vast majority of the sample identified at least one alcoholic beverage from photographs, even at age 3. COAs were more likely to identify at least one alcoholic beverage. With age controlled, COAs were better able to identify specific alcoholic beverages and correctly identified a larger number of alcoholic beverages. There was a trend for these children of alcoholic men to attribute more alcoholic beverage use to male adults than NCOAs. Moreover, differences in these children's attributions of alcoholic consummatory behavior were predicted by their parents' current consumption levels. Results provide evidence that alcohol schemas are detectable in early childhood and are more common in children from alcoholic homes. Discussion focuses on the potential relevance of these risk attributes to the development of more fully formed alcohol expectancies and to the later emergence of alcohol-related difficulty.

Alcohol Drinking↗
PubMed1995

Pathways into risk: temperament and behavior problems in three- to five-year-old sons of alcoholics.

Evidence suggests that a child with a difficult temperament, reared in an alcoholic family, is at high risk for the development of behavior problems that antedate the emergence of antisocial behavior, alcoholism, and coactive psychopathology. However, the causal linkage between difficult temperament and problem behavior in childhood, and antisociality and alcohol abuse in adulthood is far from certain, in part because few studies assess emergent behavior patterns in young children of alcoholics. In this study, we investigated the temperament-behavior problem relationship in 191 3- to 5-year-old boys, 149 of whom were being reared in high-risk alcoholic, low socioeconomic environments. Boys were classified as high in problem behavior or not based on standardized clinical cut-off scores for Total Behavior Problems from the Child Behavior Checklist. Results indicated that boys rated in the clinical range for total behavior problems exhibited more characteristics of difficult temperament than boys who were not rated in the clinical range. Parents of the boys in the clinical group had significantly more alcohol-related problems, higher levels of antisociality, and significantly lower levels of socioeconomic status, income, and education. Results are consistent with the supposition that the difficult temperament-behavior problem relationship flourishes in the context of an antisocial, alcoholic family environment.

Antisocial Personality Disorder↗
PubMed1994

Time spent with child and parental agreement about preschool children's behavior.

Although there is a common core of agreement in parental perceptions of their preschool-age sons' problem behavior, perceptions of 107 parents became more concordant as fathers increased the amount of time they spent with their sons. At least within the context of a sample who were at risk for developing abuse of alcohol or other substances and antisocial behavior, fathers who spent less time with their sons perceived them to be less troubled than mothers perceived them to be.

Child Behavior Disorders↗
PubMed1993

Predictors of behavior problems in three-year-old sons of alcoholics: early evidence for the onset of risk.

We investigated risk factors in a population-based sample of alcoholic (father) and comparison families with 3-year-old sons. Alcoholic and comparison parents did not differ in socioeconomic status (SES), education, years married, family size, or cognitive functioning. Antisocial behavior and depression were significantly greater in alcoholic parents. High risk children were more impulsive than comparison children, but there were no differences in developmental age, IQ, or behavior problems. A higher percentage of high-risk children were rated in the extreme clinical range for behavior problems than were comparison children. For alcoholic families, mothers' ratings of their children's total behavior problems, externalizing behavior problems, and internalizing behavior problems were predicted by mothers' lifetime alcohol problems, current depression, and family SES. Father variables failed to predict children's behavior problems. Maternal variables were stronger predictors of their 3-year-old sons' problem behaviors than were paternal variables.

Achievement↗
PubMed1992

Assessment of sensitivity to interpersonal stress in stutterers.

The Willoughby Personality Schedule-R was administered to adult male Yugoslav stutterers who were not yet in treatment. Internal consistency of the WPS-R was assessed by computing item-scale score correlations. Twenty-two of 25 items were significantly correlated with WPS-R total score. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed three separate and reliable dimensions: Social Isolation (ssca .85), Social Confidence (ssca .74), and Social Sensitivity (ssca = .62), that were identical to those previously found for American stutterers. Although WPS-R scores were unrelated to several measures of stuttering severity, analysis of extreme scores suggested support for the hypothesis that general anxiety moderates stuttering severity. Overall the results are consistent with the contention that hypersensitivity to interpersonal stress is manifested in stutterers as general anxiety, which is better conceptualized as occurring along a continuum than as reflecting generic "overwhelming anxiety" in stutterers.

Adult↗