The current study investigates the offending trajectories of juvenile sex offenders (JSOs) across and beyond adolescence. In doing so, the study examines the number, the rate, and the shape of nonsexual and sexual offending trajectories in a sample of JSOs followed retrospectively and prospectively from late childhood to adulthood. Using semiparametric group-based modeling, the study reveals the presence of five distinctive nonsexual offending and two sexual offending trajectories: adolescent-limited and high-rate slow desisters. The study does not find strong evidence of synchronicity between nonsexual and sexual trajectories, suggesting that the current taxonomy of antisocial behaviors may offer a limited perspective on sex offender types. Furthermore, sexual trajectories do not differ much across sex offender types, suggesting that the findings might be generalized to child and peer abusers. The study findings offer supporting evidence for the presence of two distinct JSO types with important implications for theory, research, and interventions.

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Twenty-five of 27 patients (93%) who had participated in a study of severe primary obsessive-compulsive disorder with onset in childhood or adolescence, were seen 2-7 yrs after initial examination (mean, 4.4 yrs). They were compared to a group of normal controls matched for age, sex and IQ and followed up for the same period. Continued psychopathology was striking for the patients, with only seven (28%), three males and four females, receiving no psychiatric diagnosis at follow-up. Seventeen subjects (68%) still had obsessive-compulsive disorder, 12 patients (48%) had another psychiatric disorder, most commonly anxiety and/or depression; neither initial response to clomipramine or any other baseline variable predicted outcome.

Blood and breath acetaldehyde levels were measured following ethanol ingestion (0.5 ml/kg) in 11 boys familially at risk for alcoholism and 11 age-matched controls. No significant differences were found between groups for acetaldehyde, objective, or subjective measures of intoxication. Previous reports of acetaldehyde as a marker of risk for alcoholism were not confirmed. Baseline behavioral state predicted response to alcohol. Children tended to have a subjective response in a direction opposite from the baseline mood state.

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Following a 1-week baseline, 19 normal boys (mean age 9.8 ±1.8 years) ingested either caffeine (5 mg/kg) or placebo twice a day for a 2-week period per condition in a double-blind crossover study (total study duration of 5 weeks) to study the behavioral, autonomic and side effects of caffeine. Mothers of the whole sample and children who were low caffeine users could distinguish between drug conditions by side effects. Caffeine increased autonomic reactivity of low users only. Behavioral and autonomic results were ambiguous for high users indicating possible caffeine withdrawal symptoms. While ‘caffeinism’ may occur in children, either self-selection and/or tolerance may prevent its occurrence in naturally selected diets.

We have investigated a thiamine-dependent enzyme, transketolase, in cultured fibroblasts from 41 human subjects, including patients with alcoholism-associated Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (n = 3), familial chronic alcoholic males (a = 7), their sons (n = 7), nonalcoholic men (n = 7), their male offspring (a = 7), and three generations of an Amish family (n = 10)

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