It’s a concern that almost every parent faces: the prospect of their child becoming a substance abuser. Typically, adolescent substance abuse begins with smoking tobacco, whether it’s used alone or in combination with other drugs.
Statistics such as these show that many high school students experiment with some type of substance: tobacco, alcohol, or cannabis. They experiment for a variety of reasons: it could be to fit in, to overcome feelings of sadness or depression, or because they think it will improve test performance.
Experimentation, however, doesn’t have to lead to substance dependency. If usage is detected early, the factors that drive the child’s decisions can be identified and modified. Many times, medications aren’t necessary if potential problems are detected early on. Instead, psychoeducational techniques can help parents and children identify evidence-based coping strategies to diminish the likelihood of substance use. Funds from the National Institutes of Health, and groups like those at the University of Georgia and Iowa State University, are creating culturally sensitive, scientifically proven techniques to increase the resiliency in children when it comes to resisting substance use and the behaviors associated with it.
The key to creating substance-abuse resiliency is identifying use in its earliest stages and measuring the child’s response to therapeutic processes. Behavioral Diagnostics’ tools can help concerned parents, pediatricians, family practitioners, and allied health practitioners detect and monitor the recovery progress.
By discovering smoking and alcohol consumption even at their earliest stages, you can work as a team with educators and clinicians to prevent the escalation of these risky behaviors and stop them before they spiral out of control.
Buy Alcohol Signature™ TestBuy Smoking Signature™ Test
Uses Include:
- Precisely measures average daily cigarette or alcohol consumption in anyone.
- Get truthful and accurate consumption results instead of relying on self-reporting.
- Increase success rate of substance abuse treatments with early and accurate detection.
Advantages:
- Specific for smoking, the use of chewing tobacco, nicotine patches, or “vaping” does not affect the results of our test.
- Measures alcohol and smoking consumption over time. Patients can’t stop before testing to alter results.
- The results are provided directly to the doctor or treatment counselor via encrypted files. Patient privacy is maintained.
- Affordable.
Figure 1. Evidenced based psychoeducational therapies can arrest the development of smoking and its associated behaviors. But the key to the effective use of these interventions is prompt detection. Smoke Signature can detect smoking even at the earliest stages. This allows parents, educators and clinicians to work together to prevent the escalation of risky behaviors.