Objectives of this study were to ascertain risk and protective factors in the adjustment of 78school-age and teenage offspring of opioid- and cocaine-abusing mothers. Using a multimethod,multiinformant approach, child outcomes were operationalized via lifetime psychiatric diagnosesand everyday social competence (each based on both mother and child reports), and dimensionalassessments of symptoms (mother report). Risk/protective factors examined included thechild sociodemographic attributes of gender, age, and ethnicity, aspects of maternalpsychopathology, and both mother's and children's cognitive functioning. Resultsrevealed that greater child maladjustment was linked with increasing age, Caucasian (as opposedto African American) ethnicity, severity of maternal psychiatric disturbance, higher maternalcognitive abilities (among African Americans) and lower child cognitive abilities (amongCaucasians). Limitations of the study are discussed, as are implications of findings for futureresearch.