Analyses of father- and mother- reported children’s externalizing symptoms provided results that were highly consistent with one another, however those based on adolescent’s self-reports showed some notable differences. It is difficult to clearly attribute these differences to reporter effects in the current design because parent-report models tested the effects of parents’ alcohol-related symptoms on children’s externalizing symptoms from ages 2 through 17 whereas adolescent’s self-report models included symptoms from ages 11 through 17. In addition, parent-report analyses were based on participants from the MLS and AFDP studies (and thus a larger sample) whereas child report analyses were based only on participants from AFDP.
