Adolescent Substance Use Disorders: Findings From a 14-Year Follow-Up of Speech/Language-Impaired and Control Children

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 I SUD. Interestingly, rates of SUDs did not differ by Sn 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 centrals. In a logistic regression analysis, we found age 5 mother-rated problem behavior scores and an interaction between Sn status and teacher-rated conduct problem scores were predictive of SUDs. High conduct scares 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.