The Colorado adoption project

de J. C. DeFries, Robert Plomin, David W. Fulker, Radcliffe College. Henry A. Murray Research Center

The Colorado Adoption Project (CAP), begun in 1976, is a longitudinal adoption study that examines genetic and environmental influence on behavioral development. Investigators employed a "full" adoption design by collecting data from the adoptive and biological parents, the adoptees and matched control parents and their children. While the entire data set includes measures from the predominantly white parents, siblings, and focal children (probands) spanning over a twenty year period, the Murray Center has only acquired data on the children from the first 7 years of the project and on the parents. Murray Center holdings include data from seven waves of data collection on 490 children (245 adopted and 245 controls). Children were given standardized tests of mental and motor development, communication, personality, and temperament. Additional assessments included home observations, information on the physical environment, demographics, the child's birth and the Family Environment Scale. These measures were completed in the homes of the families when the children were 1, 2, 3 and 4 years old. At ages 5 and 6, the parents were surveyed by mail and phone about temperament, health, development of their child and again completed the Family Environment Scale. The Murray Center has acquired all computer-accessible data on the probands from the first seven waves (ages 1-7), parental data, as well as videotaped data of the children interacting with their parents (in free play, semi-structured, and teaching situations) from the first three waves (ages 1-3). Sibling data as well as all later waves are being held for further analysis by the original investigators.