Childhood cognitive measures as predictors of alcohol use and problems by mid-adulthood in a non-Western cohort.

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between childhood cognitive functioning and academic achievement and subsequent alcohol use and problems in a non-Western setting. We examined longitudinal data from a birth cohort sample (n = 1,795) who were assessed at age 11 years on cognitive measures and then approximately 25 years later on lifetime alcohol use and alcohol use disorder symptom count. The sample is from Mauritius (eastern Africa), which allowed us to examine these relationships in a non-Western society with a different social structure than is typical of prior cognitive studies on primarily Caucasian samples in Western societies. Poorer performance on the Trailmaking Test in childhood predicted being a lifetime drinker, even after covarying for gender, childhood psychosocial adversity, and Muslim religion. Lower academic achievement and verbal IQ, but not performance IQ, were predictive of subsequent alcohol problems after including demographic covariates; the relationship between verbal IQ and alcohol problems was stronger in females than males. A non-linear relationship emerged for Trails, suggesting that only more extreme impairment on this measure was indicative of later alcohol problems. Results of this study provide evidence that verbal deficits and poor academic performance exist in a general cohort sample by age 11 years (when 99% were non-drinkers) for those who go on to develop alcohol problems.

Low‐level alcohol consumption during adolescence and its impact on cognitive control development

“…That we examined a low‐level drinking sample of adolescents presumably also accounts for the fact that we did not replicate that verbal comprehension predicted alcohol use problems at follow‐up (Luczak et al . ). There was a trend towards significance for family history of alcoholism that has been shown to be a reliable predictor for alcohol use problems in previous publications (Nurnberger et al .…”

“…As a recent study found evidence that verbal IQ was predictive of later alcohol problems (Luczak et al . ), we also added the index score for verbal comprehension to our path model, which was derived from the subtests ‘vocabulary’ and ‘similarities’.…”

Intellectual Functioning in In-Patients with Substance Use Disorders: Preliminary Results from a Clinical Mediation Study of Factors Contributing to IQ Variance

“…The latter includes genes and shared environment [25], socioeconomic status [26, 27] and childhood problems, including mental illness, cognitive difficulties and lower academic achievement preceding SUD [28-32]. Also, several of these environmental and constitutional factors have been associated with early school leaving [33, 34].…”

Screening for intellectual disabilities: a validation of the Hayes Ability Screening Index for in-patients with substance use disorder

“…However, the proper way in which to interpret such findings is under discussion. Support has been found for both the long-and short-term effects of substance use, other scholars relate findings to factors preceding or co-occurring with substance use, such as childhood functioning, genes, socioeconomic status, environmental variations, and schooling (Battin-Pearson et al, 2000;De Witte, Cabus, Thyssen, Groot, & van den Brink, 2013;Fried et al, 2002;Jackson et al, 2016;Kubicka, Matejcek, Dytrych, & Roth, 2001;Latvala et al, 2009;Lin et al, 2010;Luczak et al, 2015;Meyer et al, 2012, Mokrysz et al, 2016Rogeberg, 2013;Tarter et al, 1995;Tarter et al, 2003).…”