Childhood Verbal Development and Drinking Behaviors from Adolescence to Young Adulthood: A Discordant Twin-Pair Analysis

Abstract

Background Studies suggest that better cognitive and verbal abilities in childhood predict earlier experimentation with alcohol and higher levels of drinking in adolescence, whereas poorer ability is related to a higher likelihood of remaining abstinent. Whether individual differences in language development in childhood predict differences in adolescent drinking behaviors has not been studied. Methods To address that question, we compared co-twins from twin pairs discordant for their childhood language development and studied associations of parental reports of within-pair differences in age at speaking words, age at learning to read, and expressive language skills during school age with self-reported within-pair differences in drinking, intoxication, and alcohol-related problems across adolescence and young adulthood. Data from two longitudinal population-based samples of twin families were used, with verbal developmental differences in childhood reported by the parents when the twins were 12 and 16 years, respectively. Results Conditional logistic regression analyses and within-pair correlation analyses suggested positive associations between verbal development and drinking behaviors in both datasets. In analyses adjusted for birth order and birth weight, the co-twin reported to be verbally more advanced in childhood tended to report more frequent drinking and intoxication in adolescence in both samples. Better verbal development also was associated with the likelihood of having friends who drink in adolescence. Conclusions These findings suggest that, adjusting for familial and other factors shared by co-twins, better verbal development in childhood predicts more frequent drinking and intoxication in adolescence and young adulthood, possibly due, in part, to peer associations.

IQ and Level of Alcohol Consumption—Findings from a National Survey of Swedish Conscripts

“…In 1 Finnish twin study, it was found that a low assessment of a twin on different measures of verbal ability in childhood in comparison with the other twin was associated with less frequent drinking and intoxication in adolescence (Latvala et al., 2014). There are similar results in an earlier study from the United States, where low cognitive ability was shown to be associated with being a nondrinker among adolescents.…”

Risky drinking behaviors among women with eating disorders—A longitudinal community‐based study

“…The Rutgers Alcohol Problem Index (RAPI) and The Malmö‐modified Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (Mm‐MAST) were administered at waves 4 and 5. The RAPI is a 22‐item self‐screening questionnaire that assesses adolescent problem drinking and related negative consequences . The RAPI includes questions about dependence, withdrawal, blackouts, neglect of responsibilities, shame and/or embarrassment to self or others, and inappropriate behaviors.…”

“…The Mm‐MAST is originally a nine‐item self‐report scale of current drinking patterns and problems, designed for use in Nordic countries . The scale used in FinnTwin16 had 2 additional items . Each question has two possible answers: “yes” or “no”; the total number of “yes” answers provides the Mm‐MAST total score.…”

“…Because educational level is known to be associated with both drinking behaviors and eating disorder risk, and could thus confound their association, we included education as a covariate in all analyses. Information about education was based on categorical classifications of completed and ongoing studies at wave 4 . A dichotomous classification was used for parental education, denoting whether each parent had completed at least high‐school education vs. lower.…”

Drinking, smoking, and educational achievement: Cross-lagged associations from adolescence to adulthood

“…In young adulthood, the variable for drinking to intoxication had these same four categories, while the categorization of the frequency of any drinking was: (0) Less than once a month or never, (1) Approximately once or twice a month, (2) Once a week, and (3) A couple of times a week or more often. These variables have been used in earlier analyses of drinking behaviors in the Finnish twin cohort data (Dick et al, 2011; Latvala et al, in press; Pagan et al, 2006; Rose et al, 1999; Viken et al, 1999). …”