The other approach, which is centred on variables, consists of identifying personal or environmental variables which serve to attenuate or – in strict technical terms – to "moderate" the relationship between parental problems and the problems subsequently experienced by children, after first having determined that this relationship is not spurious, which is to say attributable to third variables.
Le risque est également accentué de les voir développer des difficultés cognitives et comportementales ellesmêmes propices à l’éclosion de problèmes ultérieurs d’accoutumance (Fitzgerald et al., 1993 ; Sher, 1991 ; West et Prinz, 1987). Toutefois, tous les enfants de parents alcooliques ne développent pas de telles tendances.