Adoption and Adjustment in Adolescence

David Fergusson and L John Horwood examine findings from a longitudinal study of the outcomes of adoption in a birth cohort of 1,262 New Zealand children studied from birth to the age of 16 years. This study suggested that children who entered adoptive families were advantaged throughout childhood in a number of areas including childhood experiences, standards of health care, family material conditions, family stability and mother/child interaction. However, the environmental advantages experienced by children who entered adoptive families were not directly reflected in the pattern of adolescent adjustment of this group. In particular, children placed in adoptive families had rates of externalising behaviours (including conduct disorders, juvenile offending and substance use behaviours) that were significantly higher than children reared in two-parent birth families but somewhat lower than those of children who entered single-parent families at birth.