The Michigan Longitudinal Study (MLS) used a rolling, community-based recruitment to assess three cohorts of children from families with alcoholic parents as well as children from matched, contrasting families without an alcoholic parent (Zucker et al., 2000). In cohort one, 338 males (n=262 COAs and 72 controls), initially aged 2–5, and their parents completed a series of in-home interviews. COA families were identified through court-arrest records for male drunk drivers with a minimum blood alcohol concentration (of 0.15% at first arrest or 0.12% if multiple arrests) as well as through community canvassing. Inclusion criteria for COA families were that fathers meet Feighner diagnostic criteria for alcoholism during adulthood based on self-reports (Feighner et al., 1972), reside with their biological sons aged 3–5, and be in intact marriages with their sons’ biological mothers at the time of first contact and that sons show no evidence of fetal alcohol syndrome. Contrast families were recruited through community canvassing in the neighborhoods in which COA families resided and were matched to COA families on the basis of age and sex of the target child
