Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect (1993) / Chapter Skim
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1 INTRODUCTION
1 INTRODUCTION
Pages 38-56
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From page 38... ...
However tragic and sensational, the counts of deaths and serious injuries provide limited insight into the pervasive long-term social, behavioral, and cognitive consequences of child abuse and neglect. Reports of child maltreatment alone also reveal little about the interactions among individuals, families, communities, and society that lead to such incidents.
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From page 39... ...
Research in this field is demonstrating that experiences with child abuse and neglect are a major component of many child and adult mental and behavioral disorders, including delayed development, poor academic performance, delinquency, depression, alcoholism, substance abuse, deviant sexual behaviors, and domestic and criminal violence. Many forms of child abuse and neglect are treatable and avoidable, and many severe consequences of child maltreatment can be diminished with proper attention and assistance.
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From page 40... ...
One analysis cited by the General Accounting Office that used prevalence and treatment rates generated from multiple studies (Daro, 1988) calculated potential fiscal costs resulting from child abuse estimates as follows: (1)
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From page 41... ...
In the competition for scarce research funds, the underinvestment in child maltreatment research needs to be understood in the context of bias, prejudice, and the lack of a clear political constituency for children in general and disadvantaged children in particular (Children's Defense Fund, 1991; National Commission on Children, 1991~. Factors such as racism, ethnic discrimination, sexism, class bias, institutional and professional jealousies, and social inequities influence the development of our national research agenda (Bell, 1992, Huston, 1991~.
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From page 42... ...
The scale and severity of child abuse and neglect has caused various public and private organizations to mobilize efforts to raise public awareness of individual cases and societal trends, to improve the reporting and tracking of child maltreatment cases, to strengthen the responses of social service systems, and to develop an effective and fair system for protecting and offering services to victims while also punishing adults who deliberately harm children or place them in danger. Over the past several decades, a growing number of state and federal funding programs, governmental reports, specialized journals, and research centers, as well as national and international societies and conferences, have examined various dimensions of the problem of child maltreatment.
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From page 43... ...
, established a governmental program designed to guide and consolidate national and state data collection efforts regarding reports of child abuse and neglect, conduct national surveys of household violence, and sponsor research and demonstration programs to prevent, identify, and treat child abuse and neglect. However, the federal government's leadership role in building a research base in this area has been complicated by changes and inconsistencies in research plans and priorities, limited funding, politicized peer review, fragmentation of effort among various federal agencies, poorly scheduled proposal review deadlines, and bias introduced by competing institutional objectives.
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From page 44... ...
The co-occurrence of different forms of child maltreatment has been examined only to a limited extent. Relatively little is known about areas of similarity and differences in terms of causes, consequences, prevention, and treatment of selected types of child abuse and neglect.
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From page 45... ...
Despite this quantity of literature, researchers generally agree that the quality of research on child maltreatment is relatively weak in comparison to health and social science research studies in areas such as family systems and child development. Only a few prospective studies of child maltreatment have been undertaken, and most studies rely on the use of clinical samples (which may exclude important segments of the research population)
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From page 46... ...
Thus, the report draws out issues based on clinical studies or studies that lack sufficient control samples, but the panel refrains from drawing inferences based on this literature. The panel believes that future research reviews of the child maltreatment literature would benefit from the identification of explicit criteria that could guide the selection of exemplary research studies, such as the follow~ng: · The extent to which the study is guided by theory regarding the origins and pathways of child abuse and neglect; .
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From page 47... ...
Department of Health and Human Services requested that the National Academy of Sciences convene a study panel to undertake a comprehensive examination of the theoretical and pragmatic research needs in the area of child maltreatment. The Panel on Research on Child Abuse and Neglect was asked specifically to: · Review and assess research on child abuse and neglect, encompassing work funded by the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families and other known sources under public and private auspices; · Identify research that provides knowledge relevant to the field; and · Recommend research priorities for the next decade, including new
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From page 48... ...
In conducting this review, the panel has recognized the special status of studies of child maltreatment. The experience of child abuse or neglect from any perspective, including victim, perpetrator, professional, or witness, elicits strong emotions that may distort the design, interpretation, or support of empirical studies.
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From page 49... ...
Our panel considered, but did not endorse, a framework that would emphasize differences in the categories of child abuse or neglect. We also considered a framework that would highlight differences in the current system of detecting, investigating, or responding to child maltreatment.
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From page 50... ...
What is required is the mobilization of new structures of support and resources to concentrate research efforts on significant areas that offer the greatest promise of improving our understanding of, and our responses to, child abuse and neglect. Our report extends beyond what is, to what could be, in a society that fosters healthy development in children and families.
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From page 51... ...
There has been little effort to cut across the categorical lines established within these studies to understand points of convergence or divergence in studies on child abuse and neglect. The ecological developmental perspective can also improve our understanding of the consequences of child abuse and neglect, which may occur with increased or diminished intensity over a developmental cycle, or in different settings such as the family or the school.
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From page 52... ...
PREVIOUS REPORTS A series of national reports associated with the health and welfare of children have been published in the past decade, many of which have identified the issue of child abuse and neglect as one that deserves sustained attention and creative programmatic solutions. In their 1991 report, Beyond Rhetoric, the National Commission on Children noted that the fragmentation of social services has resulted in the nation's children being served on the basis of their most obvious condition or problem rather than being served on the basis of multiple needs.
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From page 53... ...
This knowledge can enable public and private officials to execute their responsibilities more effectively, more equitably, and more compassionately and empower families and communities to resolve their problems and conflicts in a manner that strengthens their internal resources and reduces the need for external interventions. REPORT OVERVIEW Early studies on child abuse and neglect evolved from a medical or pathogenic model, and research focused on specific contributing factors or causal sources within the individual offender to be discovered, addressed, and prevented.
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From page 54... ...
Although the quality of research within different categories of child abuse and neglect is uneven and problems of definitions, data collection, and study design continue to characterize much research in this field, the panel concluded that enough progress has been achieved to integrate the four categories of maltreatment into a child-oriented framework that could analyze the similarities and differences of research findings. Rather than encouraging the continuation of a categorical approach that would separate research on physical or sexual abuse, for example, the panel sought to develop for research sponsors and the research community a set of priorities that would foster the integration of scientific findings, encourage the development of comparative analyses, and also distinguish key research themes in such areas as identification, incidence, etiology, prevention, consequences, and treatment.
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From page 55... ...
NOTE 1. The panel received an anecdotal report, for example, that one federal research agency systematically changed titles of its research awards over a decade ago, replacing phrases such as child abuse with references to maternal and child health care, after political sensitivities developed regarding the appropriateness of its research program in this area.
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From page 56... ...
U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect 1990 Child Abuse and Neglect: Critical First Steps in Response to a National Emergency August.
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