Specific cognitive impairment in sons of early onset alcoholics.

Cognitive and behavioral functioning in school-aged sons of early onset alcoholics, late onset alcoholics, normal social drinking fathers, and depressed fathers were compared on a battery of neuropsychological measures. Sons of early onset alcoholics performed more poorly than offspring of the normal fathers on tests measuring attention and verbal intellectual capacity, but were not significantly different from sons of late onset alcoholic fathers. Sons of normal and late onset alcoholics were not distinguishable from each other.