Skip to main content
. 1995;19(2):142–147.

Table 1.

Cognitive-Neuropsychological Findings in Children of Alcoholics (COA’s)1

Cognitive Variable - Research Findings
Intelligence
 Verbal performance

  • COA’s have lower scores (Refs. 1–4); male COA’s have lower scores (Ref. 3)

  • COA’s with multiple male alcoholic relatives have lower scores than COA’s with only an alcoholic father (Ref. 1)
 Verbal skills

  • Adopted COA’s have poorer ability (Ref. 1)

  • COA’s have poorer general verbal ability (Refs.1–4)
Memory
 Verbal

  • Most studies suggest no impairment in COA’s (Refs. 2,4, but cf. Ref. 3)

  • COA’s with multiple male alcoholic relatives have lower scores than COA’s with only an alcoholic father (Ref. 1)
 Nonverbal

  • Most studies suggest no impairment in COA’s (Refs. 2,4)
Perceptual and Motor Skills (including spatial skills)

  • COA’s with multiple male alcoholic relatives have poorer skills than COA’s with only an alcoholic father (Ref. 1)

  • Some inconsistent data showing deficits in COA’s (Refs. 2, 3), but much evidence against these deficits (Ref. 4)

  • Some evidence for increased body sway while standing for COA’s; the findings are inconsistent, possibly due to procedural and sampling differences (Ref. 2)

  • Most studies suggest no differences between intoxicated COA’s and family history-negative (FHN) subjects on body sway (Ref. 2)

  • Sober COA’s are not impaired on other sensorimotor domains (Refs. 2,4) but may differ from FHN’s while intoxicated (Ref. 2)
Standard Neuropsychological Test Batteries

  • Little evidence for consistent deficits in COA’s (Refs. 1,2,4)

  • Some evidence for statistical differences between COA’s and FHN’s but small and not clinically meaningful (Ref. 2)
Abstracting and Planning

  • Adopted COA’s have poorer ability (Ref. 1)

  • Alcoholic COA’s (vs. FHN alcoholics) have poorer ability (Refs. 1,3,4)

  • Generally, COA-FHN differences are relatively small but are present (Refs. 2–4)
1

The findings are presented for COA’s compared with family history-negative subjects except where indicated.