Child Maltreatment: Cognitive, Biological, And Social Development

Childhood maltreatment is a prevalent problem through out the world. As a child grows and matures the brain continues to develop according its experiences. During this time sensitive periods of development for different areas of the brain. A few areas that are of interest are the stress-influenced areas, which are at an increased risk for developmental problems when exposed to maltreatment. The extra stress from such exposures can influence abnormalities throughout the brain, which have been linked to structure changes with in the corpus callosum, anterior cingulate, dorsolateral prefrontal, orbitofrontal cortex, and hippocampus, amygdala, and cerebellum, as well as changes to stress related hormone systems. These structural changes are associated with an increased risk of psychopathology and other life long educational and physiological risk.

Children can be victims of different types of maltreatment such as neglect, medical abuse, physical abuse and sexual abuse (Maschi, Bradley, & Ward, 2009). “On average, nationally, there is a report of child maltreatment every 5 seconds, and child maltreatment is substantiated every

Within the United States, child maltreatment is becoming more and more commonly reported as there is over 3 million reports each year. Due to the constant increase of child maltreatment reports, society has become more aware of the issue, which has led to awareness campaigns. (Payne, 87). Even with societies’ knowledge of such abuse there are still serval child maltreatment cases that are not reported. The children that are victims of maltreatment pertains any sort of harm to the child whether it is by injury, neglect, physical, emotional, or even sexual abuse by someone who holds a major role in the child’s life, a parent or guardian figure (“What is Child Abuse”).

The conceptualisation of the long-term effects of child maltreatment reflects the surrounding circumstances which expose child abuse as a common event. Childhood abuse is a growing epidemic which evokes extreme emotional responses both privately and publicly and is viewed as a risk factor for an extensive variety of consequent problems. 2014 demonstrated that over 137,585 child abuse cases involving 99,210 Australian children were investigated (Australian Institute of Family Studies 2015). Abuse is categorised into neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse and emotional abuse. Contrary to the implied supposition that emotional abuse is less injurious in comparison to sexual and physical abuse, emotional abuse ranked as the most commonly substantiated harm type in Victoria, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Australia Capital Territory (AIFS 2015). Childhood abuse occurs throughout a period where complex and ordered changes occur within a child’s physiological, psychological and sociological being. The following report will accentuate how the state of flux instigated by childhood abuse leaves children susceptible harmful consequences that will pervert or prevent a normal developmental procedure. Through psychological and physiological wellbeing, adult delinquency and the effects on different genders readers will be able to identify the harmful consequences childhood abuse places on victims and survivors.

Child abuse is a widespread problem in America and beyond. Every year more than 3 million reports of child abuse are made in the United States involving more than 6 million children(1a). For many years, experts believed that the negative effects of child abuse, such as emotional problems, flashbacks to traumatic events, and even learning problems, were psychological phenomena only, able to be cured with therapy. Now, however, beliefs are being changed with the help of tools such as MRI imaging, able to detect actual changes in brain anatomy, and it appears that what doesn't kill you may still permanently weaken you, at least when it comes to child abuse.

Abuse is an experience that sticks with children forever; with high emotions and fears clogging their mind they have no room to think about other important factors such as schoolwork. Brain development is especially important in the younger years, and when a child is abused this interrupts the development for this student. This brain development trauma leads into the classroom in different areas of a child’s life such as cognitive functioning, interpersonal skills with others, and their overall academic performance (Finkelhor, 2008). One cannot simply expect a child who was an abused to not have any form of cognitive problems.

The way this study was carried out was, through a survey called the NESARC that was administered to a group of 43,093 individuals in the first wave of interview questions, and 34,653 individuals in the second wave of the survey. Wave 2 assessed childhood maltreatment, and all the data collected by face-to-face interviews. Childhood maltreatment was measured through different questions based on the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and Conflict Tactics Scale. The questions asked the subjects about whether they have ever experienced emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, or physical neglect.

In our society, an individual child’s maltreatment can cause that child, as an adult, employment problems and financial problems. While, long term economic issues in our society associated with child maltreatment include the cost of health-care, judicial system, and law enforcement. The direct costs of child maltreatment total $124 billion dollars and the indirect total is approximately $104 billion dollars as of 2011. (Long-Term Consequences Of Child Abuse And Neglect, 2013t)

There are multiple ways the effects of child maltreat may present in adult survivors including emotionally, physically, behaviorally, psychologically, and/or socially. These effects reach beyond that of the adult survivor into their families and society as a whole. In order for treatment to be effective it needs to be multi-focused on reducing risk factors of negative long-term effects as well as promote protective factors ensuring the ongoing welfare of the maltreated child and her/his family (Vermont 's Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention-FFY’11 Annual Grant Report, 2013). This researcher proposes that early and proper treatment of child maltreatment will enable survivors to go on and live happy, healthy, productive adult lives.

In the past ten years researchers have increase their knowledge on the understanding of the different effects that maltreatment has on early brain development. A foundation has been set for the neurobiological explanations of children who have experienced sexual abuse in their early years of life. The explanations include areas of physical, cognitive, social, and emotional struggles. There are many different internal and external factors that associate with the way the child develops into adulthood. Variables that can be taken into account are individual factors and environmental factors. For example individual factors consist of children’s temperaments and vulnerability. In regards to environmental factors this contains how caregivers portray abuse along with overall family atmosphere. Some other specific variables associated with abuse are duration, amount of violence, and relationship between victim and abuser. In addition, age has a strong impact on the victim in regards to adult sexual behavior. When a child is abused at a young age he or she is more likely to engage in sexualized external behavior. At the age of six or younger, children have a higher chance to show their abuse through inappropriate and aggressive sexualized behavior. As for older children of twelve and up they lean more towards fear of sex. These children shoe more internal behavior problems as well (Aaron, 2012).

According to Karen Seccombe (2010), the highest rates of victimization exist among children from birth to one year old, and they are slightly more likely to be female. As defined in Exploring Marriages and Families, child abuse is an attack on a child that results in an injury and violates our social norms. There are four types that are most commonly considered: neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and psychological or emotional maltreatment. Each of these has been studied at length, and some have been linked to various other problems. For example, Romano (2014) suggests that not only is there a link between childhood academic achievement and mental health, but between childhood maltreatment and educational outcomes as well. Maltreatment here can be defined simply as any verbal, mental, or psychological abuse which serves to destroy a child’s self-esteem (Seccombe, 2010). The research evaluates certain variables

The maltreatment of children occurs at extraordinarily increasing proportions and is becoming a significant health risk to the children it is happening to. One of the major public health concerns should be identifying the risk factors associated with the maltreatment of these children and the just how much resistance these children really have against this abuse. Regardless of how much elasticity the general public in a whole may think these children have against maltreatment, they are still at a major risk of having diminished or compromised psychological and physical health later in life as an adult and are also are at extreme risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Children who were not subject to maltreatment are still

In keeping with evolving understanding of child maltreatment from research and clinical experience, Belsky (1993) expanded this ecological perspective and introduced a developmental-ecological analysis of child maltreatment. This approach included the “developmental context”, the “immediate interactional context”, and “the broader context”. Belsky made a distinction stating that aspects within the child, innate and or biological, play a role in the child’s experience of maltreatment and developmental dysfunction. These include aspects such as the child’s age, health and behaviors. Belsky further determined that parent-child interaction was a key factor related to child maltreatment and occurred within the immediate interactional context. Concurrently, community,

Children of various ages who face abuse either physically, emotionally, or sexually can scar a child for life. Many of these children who suffer from abuse deal with many emotions and struggle to communicate their feelings with others and can lead to anger and social problems and in so many of these cases children head down the path of delinquency. Abuse as a child can double the chances that the child will most likely grow – up as an individual who will participate in all types of crime. Child neglect or maltreatment is also link to juvenile delinquency and according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as stated in the National Bureau of Economic Research (2016) “Over a million children are victims of maltreatment annually.”

Discipline starts at home. How parents discipline their children affects how they evolve in life. When children leaves their home and enter school children learn rules in a classroom to respect their teachers and their classmates. Children are not always supervised by an adult. There may be an adult watching over them but they cannot keep an eye on everything. Physical abuse is easier to determine than verbal abuse. Parents are the prior source for children to learn that physical, verbal or any form of abuse is wrong, but what happens when parents are abusing their children? Benj Vardigan reports that “verbal abuse can undermine your child’s self-esteem, damage his ability to trust and form relationships, and chip away at academic and social skills” (Vardigan). Parents need to find ways to discipline their children without being abusive because how they are treated does affect their development.