What young children know about drugs : influences of age, sex, race, and mother's drug attitudes

The present study investigated young children's drug knowledge and attitudes. Fifty-two low income children between the ages of three and eight years were tested using two different interviews: The Pictorial Drug Knowledge Interview with Young Children (PDKIYC) and the Verbal Drug Knowledge Interview with Young Children (VDKIYC). With the PDKIYC the children were shown 11 black and white photographs of different legal and illegal substances and asked four specific questions about each photo. The VDKIYC was similar in methodology except the children were asked to discuss the same substances with verbal prompts instead of pictures. The results of the study show that young children do have attitudes towards and knowledge of alcohol and other drugs. Paired t-tests showed a significant difference in mean scores of what the young children knew about drugs when tested on the PDKIYC and the VDKIYC. Analysis of variance showed a significant effect for age on both of the interviews. The mothers of the children were given two surveys on their attitudes towards drugs. One of the two surveys, The Drug Attitude Scale for Parents, was significantly correlated with the children's score on the VDKIYC. This study supports previous findings that young children are knowledgeable about alcohol and also adds to the research that children are knowledge of and have attitudes about other legal and illegal drugs.