Predictors of self-reported alcohol use and attitudes toward alcohol among 11-year-old British children with and without intellectual disability.
Kids with intellectual disability already drink and like alcohol by age 11, so start prevention early.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers asked 11-year-olds in Britain about drinking.
Some kids had intellectual disability. Some did not.
Kids told if they had sipped alcohol, felt drunk, or thought drinking was cool.
What they found
Children with ID were more likely to say they had drunk alcohol.
They also liked alcohol more and saw good social things in it.
Smoking friends and thinking drinking helps you fit in were big predictors.
How this fits with other research
Cadette et al. (2016) looked at adults with ID who already drink too much. They found no special attention bias, showing the early attitudes seen here can last.
Libero et al. (2016) used the same UK cohort and found kids with ID also try smoking more. Together the papers map an early substance-use start.
Rose et al. (2000) saw low alcohol abuse in UK residential adults with ID. That seems opposite, but those adults lived in tight supervised homes. The new data come from free-living 11-year-olds, so risk shows up before services kick in.
Why it matters
You now know alcohol education can’t wait until high school for kids with ID.
Start brief anti-drinking lessons before age 11. Pair them with refusal-skills training and peer refusal stories. Track which kids hang out with smokers, they are the likeliest to try alcohol next.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Reducing harmful levels of alcohol consumption among children is an important public health concern internationally and in many high income countries. Little is known about levels and predictors of alcohol use among children with intellectual disability (ID). METHOD: Secondary analysis of child self-report data at age 11 years collected in the UK's Millennium Cohort Study. RESULTS: Children with ID were significantly more likely to: have used alcohol in the last 4 weeks; to have had five or more alcoholic drinks on one occasion; to have had five or more alcoholic drinks or been intoxicated on one occasion; to have more positive attitudes about the psychological and social benefits of drinking; and to have less negative attitudes about the social and physical costs of drinking. Potentially harmful levels of drinking (intoxication or 5+ alcoholic drinks on one occasion) among children with ID were associated with child smoking, having friends who use alcohol, reporting that drinking makes it easier to make friends, and reporting that drinking reduces worrying. Children with ID accounted for 9% of all children with potentially harmful levels of drinking. CONCLUSION: Public health interventions to reduce potentially harmful drinking among children in general must recognise that children with ID are a potentially high risk group and ensure that interventions are appropriately adjusted to take account of their particular needs and situation. Future research in this area is needed to untangle the causal pathways between attitudes toward alcohol and alcohol use among children with ID and the extent to which levels of alcohol use and predictors of alcohol use may be moderated by severity of ID.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2016 · doi:10.1111/jir.12334