EARLY TEENAGE SUBSTANCE USE AS A PREDICTOR OF EDUCATIONAL-VOCATIONAL FAILURE

The authors report on the relationship of early adolescent substance u se (up to the time of the 16th birthday) to educational-vocational per formance in the early adulthood of 612 African-American urban subjects . Voluminous prospective data were available on the behavior, test per formance, and families of 612 urban African-American subjects, from bi rth up to 7 years of age. Scarcer prospective data were available for school performance during later years of school. Control variables wer e derived from these data to determine the amount of variance in each dependent educational-vocational outcome variable that was accounted f or, independently of the amount of variance accounted for by early sub stance use.