Children of Heroin Addicts

Abstract

Fourteen Black, male, opiate addicts, their wives, and their children were studied intensively using psychiatric interviews and psychological tests. Their 32 children were compared to 37 pediatric clinic children. The children raised in a home where father is an opiate addict function cognitively less well than their father, and the teenagers show earlier and stronger antisocial trends than pediatric clinic peers. On the other hand, there is a surprising absence of other psychopathology that one might expect, taking into consideration the deviant environment from which they come.