Methodological issues in detecting specific long-term consequences of perinatal drug exposure.

Children who were chronically exposed to drugs of abuse during gestation typically are at elevated risk on other biomedical and socioenvironmental bases as well. Identifying additional risk or specific effects of perinatal drug exposure may require research designs and standardization of measures different from those now in use. The design and measurement issues in the assessment of the psychological characteristics of these children are discussed, with particular attention to the composition of control groups and the psychometric properties of measures.