Child Abuse and Neglect How Research Paper

The findings from Experiment 2 indicate that maltreated children's lower recognition accuracy is not secondary to an impairment of their ability to detect physical differences between facial expressions. Rather, maltreatment seems to affect children's understanding of particular emotional displays (p. 684). Relationship with Peers and Parents: A study conducted by Burack et al. In 2007 assessed the ability of maltreated school-age children and adolescents to understand the thoughts, feelings, and points-of-view of others. Level of egocentrism and social perspective-taking coordination were assessed in a group of 49 chronically maltreated and 49 demographically matched non-maltreated children. The findings revealed that despite opportunities for monitored peer interactions and contact with supportive adult models in therapeutic group home settings and in treatment programs, maltreated children and adolescents were more egocentric and delayed in their social perspective-taking development than their non-maltreated peers and that they reported lower levels of global self-worth. However, one potentially positive finding was that low levels of externalizing and internalizing behaviors among the maltreated children were associated with better interpersonal negotiation strategies with unfamiliar peers indicating that the effects of maltreatment are not necessarily globally deleterious with respect to social perspective-taking skills (see Burack et al., 2006, p. 214). According to this study, maltreating parents may pose a particular threat to their children's development of age-appropriate perspective-taking skills.The family environment of almost all maltreated children lacks the elements of support, affection, empathic modeling, and inductive child-rearing techniques that are identified as important variables in the development of the capacity for understanding the feelings and perspectives of others and a coherent sense of self. Because parents who rear their children in unresponsive or violent environments fail to foster communicative exchanges, opportunities to form emotional attachments with alternative parental figures and peers are also limited, as maltreating parents tend to isolate their families from others in the community and deprive their children of opportunities for interaction. Accordingly, maltreated children often form insecure, conflicted relationships with primary caregivers and are at risk for delays in the development of age-appropriate, self-other differentiation (Burack et al., 2006, p. 208).

Previous research cited by Kaplow and Spatz Wisdom (see p. 183) has also identified important links between early childhood maltreatment, insecure attachment relationships, and the inability to achieve critical developmental milestones such as self-regulation. Children who are abused or neglected earlier in life are more likely to develop insecure attachment relationships with their primary caregivers, leading to emotion-regulation difficulties and problem-solving deficits. Psychological Outcomes of.....