Essay - Literature Review Adolescent Substance Abuse Adolescent Drug and Alcohol Abuse...

Literature Review

Adolescent Substance Abuse

Adolescent drug and alcohol abuse is a prev*****iling problem in many schools. The disruptive behaviors reach across racial and economic lines, ***** begin what can be a cycle of self destructive beh*****viors in the lives of the children which experiment with *****se substances, as well as the families ********** create when enter*****g adulthood. According to Mayer, (1999) researchers have created sophisticated school-based drug and alcohol prevention programs which take into account the community, parents and the media. Each of these factors is considered to have influential affect on children's behavior, so recent ***** seek to address and counteract a wide v*****riety of social influences. The programs work ***** disproving the children's preconceived notions regarding the popularity and use of *****s ***** by teaching children resistance skills through the use ***** a variety of multi-***** programs, and engaging them in role play*****g activities. According to Mayer, by the time children reach eighth grade, nearly one in four has tried marijuana, a quarter ***** been drunk and one ***** five has sniffed inhalants. More than half have tried beer, wine or other similar products. The number ***** teens receiving substance ***** treatment on any given day in our country between the years 1991 and 1996, a time when illicit drug use soared am*****g adolescents in this country, ballooned 77,000.

***** to Butchart (1989) recent studies indicate ***** are ********** ***** ***** alcohol at earlier ages (Johnston, et.al, 1985). ********** also are drinking m*****e heavily ***** earlier *****. (Hamburg et.al, 1982; O'Shea and Hayes, 1982) These findings along ***** data indicating that those who misuse alcohol as young people tend to be a majority of ***** population of adult ***** drinkers and alcoholics (Bosma, 1975) have stimulated efforts in developing school-based prevention *****. (DeLuca, 1981) Reviews ***** early programs designed to prevent alcohol misuse among adolescents concluded the programs were ***** these programs ***** ineffective in *****ing alcohol ***** behavior. (Kinder et.al, 1980; Young, 1968) After c*****ful consideration of the early *****, and reviewing the data and ********** in a meta-learning frame*****, reveals several shortcomings in the design of the studies, ***** conceptualization of programs, the evaluations, and the methodology employed in implement*****g ***** evaluating programs. (Kinder et.al, 1980; *****, 1968) Problems cited include:

poorly formulated educational goals and directives inadequately ***** evaluational methods lack ***** realistic objectives ***** the scope, or resources of ***** projects lack of any the*****etical basis ***** support focus on measuring changes in information, attitudes, or intentions only assumed to be correlated with the behavior in question an exclusive reliance on short-term differences between groups ***** behavioral measures, or a lack of outcome measurement at all failure to carefully consider or specify the ***** outcome measures, and lack of standardization of the program implementation.

***** a result, researchers have returned to the drawing board, and constructed research studies which are based on the needed foundation to mine accurate results. The vast amount ***** successful ***** over the past 2 decades, together with the