Am J Psychiatry 1987; 144:1135-1142
Copyright © 1987 by American Psychiatric Association
Current status and future directions of research on the American Indian child
A Yates
American Indians are the most severely disadvantaged of any population
within the United States. By adolescence, Indian children show higher rates
of suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse, delinquency, and out-of-home placement.
School achievement is severely compromised, and many youths drop out before
graduation from high school. The Indian child understands the environment
through intuitive, visual, and pictorial means, but success in the Anglo
school is largely dependent on auditory processing, abstract
conceptualization, and language skills. This difference compounds existing
problems of poverty, dislocation, alienation, depression and
intergenerational conflict and can partially account for the higher rate of
emotional and behavioral problems among Indian adolescents.
