Child Maltreatment

The current study compared behavioral and adrenocortical functioning of maltreated (N = 91) and comparably aged (1.5–3 years) institutionally-reared children soon after (1.5–2.5 months) placement in foster care or adoptive homes, respectively. Foster and adoptive parents reported on the children’s socioemotional competence and behavior problems, experimenters scored fear and positive affect to laboratory tasks, and diurnal cortisol measures were obtained. We sought to address whether these early contexts, characterized by different types of neglect and deprivation, have differential effects on young children’s development. We found little support for the argument that either context results in uniformly poorer functioning soon after removal from adversity. Maltreated children were less fearful and more positive when exposed to both positive and novel events than institutionally-reared children. However, maltreated children were reported to have more behavior problems than did institutionally-reared children, and institutionally-reared children showed more typical declines in cortisol throughout the day than the maltreated children. These findings increase our ability to construct more targeted and effective interventions for these populations.

The goals of this study were twofold: (1) to compare the pragmatic language skills (i.e., social communication skills) of 42-month-old neglected children with those of same-aged non-neglected children and (2) to measure the prevalence of pragmatic difficulties among the neglected children. The study sample was composed of 45 neglected and 95 non-neglected 42-month-old French-speaking children. The Language Use Inventory: French (LUI-French) was completed with all parents. This measure, comprised of 159 scored items divided into 10 subscales, was used to assess the children’s pragmatic skills. The 10th percentile on the LUI-French (95% confidence interval ) was used to identify children with pragmatic difficulties. The neglected children had lower scores than the non-neglected children on all 10 dimensions of pragmatics evaluated (p < .01), as well as lower LUI-French Total Scores (p < .001). The effect sizes of these differences varied between 0.84 and 2.78. Forty-four percent of the neglected children presented significant pragmatic difficulties compared to 4.2% of their non-neglected peers (p < .001). It can be concluded that exposure to neglect significantly compromises children’s pragmatic skills. These results support the need for interventions geared toward neglected children and their families to support the early development of their pragmatic skills.

Language is the most frequently compromised area of development in English-speaking neglected children, particularly the morphosyntactic component of language. This is very worrisome given its central role in academic success and social participation. No previous study has examined the morphosyntactic skills of French-speaking neglected children, despite the morphological richness of French. This study aimed to fill this gap. Forty-four neglected (mean age = 48.32 months, SD = 0.45) and 92 non-neglected (mean age = 48.07 months, SD = 0.24) French-speaking children participated. Measures of morphosyntactic skills were derived from a sample of spontaneous language collected during standardized semistructured play and analyzed using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts software (2012) . Four morphosyntactic indicators were compared using analyses of variance and Kolmogorov–Smirnov tests: the mean length of utterances (MLU), verbal inflections, word-level errors, and omission errors. The results indicate that 25.6% of the neglected children presented clinically significant morphosyntactic difficulties, as evidenced by a significantly shorter MLU (M = 5.60, SD = 1.13; M = 6.90, SD = 1.30), fewer verbal inflections, and more frequent word omission errors compared to their non-neglected peers. The results confirm that French-speaking neglected children present many morphosyntactic difficulties. This study argues for sustained speech–language services for these children.

Using a pooled data set of two waves of the National Surveys of Children’s Exposure to Violence, this study investigates links between indicators of socioeconomic resources and lifetime exposure to two different forms of child neglect (physical and supervisory), examines how neglect is associated with the risk of other types of victimization, and estimates the impact of neglect on trauma symptoms. Findings suggest that physical neglect is directly linked to economic stressors, while low parental education is consequential for both physical and supervisory neglect. Both types of neglect also were strongly associated with risk of other maltreatment and most other forms of victimization. Physical neglect was particularly strongly related to sexual abuse and witnessing sibling abuse, while supervisory neglect was most strongly related to risk for sexual victimization by a nonfamily adult. Although neglect is significantly associated with trauma symptoms, poly-victims had, by far, the highest levels of trauma symptoms.

A first-line screening instrument, the Preschool Inventory of Trauma Symptoms (PITS), was developed to assess trauma symptoms with a diverse sample of 150 toddlers and preschoolers (M = 2.49 years; SD = 1.12). Items reflected the current trauma literature, assessment measures, and diagnostic criteria for very young children. A principal component analysis produced a 34-item, four-factor model: Arousal and Hyper-Reactivity, Fearful Attachment, Intrusion and Re-Experiencing, and Avoidance and Negative Cognition and Mood. One validity scale, Response Style, was also developed. All scales significantly correlated (r = .45 to .81; p < .01) with preestablished trauma measures and demonstrated adequate internal consistency (α = .68 − .87). A receiver operating characteristics curve analysis identified a cut-score with good discrimination ability (.88), sensitivity (.81), and specificity (.81). In a preliminary pilot study, PITS also was found to be sensitive to trauma symptom change following participation in an evidence-based trauma informed treatment program. A copy of the PITS is included in the Appendix for free use by qualified professionals.

This study aimed to prospectively identify ecological risk factors for juvenile arrest in a sample of youth at risk for maltreatment. Chi-Squared Automatic Interaction Detector analysis was performed with data from 592 youth from the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect to identify the optimal combination of age 14 predictors of past-year arrest at age 16. Results extended previous research, which has identified being male, having more conduct disorder symptoms, suspension from school, perceived school importance, witnessing family violence, and having a jailed family member as key risk and protective factors for arrest by identifying important interactions among these risk factors. These interactions differentiate youth at the greatest risk of arrest, which, in this sample, were males with greater than two symptoms of conduct disorder who witnessed family violence. These findings suggest that longitudinal and multi-informant data could inform the refinement of actuarial risk assessments for juvenile arrest.

Childhood exposure to domestic violence (CEDV) is widely understood as potentially harmful to children. Accordingly, many child welfare systems in the United States construe CEDV as maltreatment when the exposure results in harm or threatened harm to the child. The purpose of the current study was to investigate substantiated child welfare referrals directly related to CEDV to better understand the prevalence and patterns of CEDV-related maltreatment and how child welfare workers respond under the “harm or threatened harm” standard. Data were drawn from 23,704 substantiated referrals between 2009 and 2013 in a large Midwestern child welfare system. Approximately 20% of substantiated referrals were CEDV related. A plurality of CEDV-related referrals included both a male caregiver and female caregiver who were co-substantiated for maltreatment. The most common maltreatment types substantiated for these referrals were neglect based rather than abuse based, and just under a quarter (23%) of CEDV-related referrals were formally opened for services. Referrals involving co-occurring substance abuse were most likely to be opened for services based on predicted probabilities derived from multilevel modeling. Implications for policy and practice are considered.

Children’s testimony is often critical to the initiation of legal proceedings in abuse cases. In forensic interviews, the expression of emotions can powerfully enhance both the quality of children’s statements and perceptions that their statements are coherent and credible. However, children rarely express their emotions when reporting abusive events. The Revised The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Protocol (RP) was designed to emphasize socioemotional communication during forensic interviews and thus should be associated with more extensive and diverse expressions of emotions by alleged victims of abuse. The present study focused on forensic interviews (178 using the Revised and 100 using the Standard NICHD Protocol) with victims of physical child abuse whose allegations were corroborated using independent evidence. Detailed content coding showed that the RP was associated with the expression of more different emotions, more expression of abuse-related emotions, and more expression of emotions related to the interview context. Emotional expressiveness was associated with increased informativeness, and the association between the type of protocol and informativeness was fully mediated by emotional expressiveness. These results suggest that the Revised Protocol facilitates the expression of emotions by alleged victims of abuse in a way that enhances the value of children’s testimony in multiple ways.

Women who experience childhood sexual victimization (CSV) report more problems with sexuality and with parenting during adulthood. Consequently, mothers with a CSV history may have particular difficulty with parent–child sexual communication. We examine this possibility in 184 diverse, low-income mother–adolescent daughter dyads. Mothers and daughters reported on the frequency, tone, and comfort of their sexual communication. Using dyadic approaches to analyses, we tested whether mothers’ and daughters’ reports, and their level of agreement, differ by maternal CSV history. In dyads with maternal CSV, daughters reported more frequent communication in which they felt less embarrassed, and they perceived their mothers as less embarrassed. Mothers with a CSV history were also more accurate in judging how their daughters feel during sexual communication. Although CSV is associated with many negative outcomes, our results suggest mothers with CSV may approach mother–daughter sexual communication in ways that could reduce sexual risk in offspring.

In this study, we use population-based linked administrative data to document the full child protective service (CPS) histories of arrested youth and young adults. We extracted records for all individuals aged 24 and under who were arrested in California in 2014 and 2015. These records were probabilistically linked to statewide CPS records dating back to 1998. Overall, 43.4% of those arrested had a history of CPS involvement. Among individuals with uncensored CPS records (born in 1998 or later), 60.2% had past CPS involvement. Findings indicate that youth and young adults booked for a felony offense were more likely to have a history of CPS involvement than those booked for misdemeanors. A multinomial model served to confirm bivariate findings. This study provides further evidence that community concerns of childhood maltreatment were common among criminal justice–involved young adults.