ABSTRACT
A program to prevent the development of conduct problems among preschool sons of alcoholic fathers was established as a way to interrupt what is likely to be one of the major mediating factors in the development of risk for alcoholism in later years. A community sample of 104 alcoholic men who: (a) had been convicted for driving while impaired with high blood alcohol concentrations (BACs), (b) were living in an intact relationship, (c) were the fathers of 3- to 5-year-old sons, and (d) lived within a 30-mile radius of the treatment facility was recruited from all district courts in a four-county area. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of two intervention formats, both parents or mothers only, or to a control group. The intervention combined a parent-training model with a marital issues component, and it spanned a 10-month interval. Evaluations were conducted at preintervention, midtreatment, termination, and 6-month follow-up. Overall, the intervention program had significant effects on negative, prosocial, and affectionate behavior at termination, but only the prosocial behavior effect persisted at follow-up. Some format differences were also observed, however; the both-parents format had greater impact on prosocial behavior than the mothers-only 272format at both termination and follow-up. Ongoing difficulties and resolutions of conducting outreach-based early intervention programming with this population are discussed.
