final exam

• Abuse


  Parenting errors of commission. Threatening input into the system
• Neglect


  Parenting errors of omission. Lack of input into the system
• Physical abuse


  Intentional use of physical force against a child that can result in injury
• Sexual abuse


  Any attempted or completed sexual act, exploitation of a child by a caregiver
• Emotional abuse


  Intentional behavior that conveys to a child they are worthless
• To make a diagnosis and suggest course of treatment

  Medical definition
• Diagnostic categories reflecting maltreatment: non-accidental trauma, failure to thrive
• To protect children and optimize development through intervention

  Social services
• Spectrums of parenting behavior and child outcomes rather than categories
• To make decisions about parental rights and child advocacy


  Legal definition
• Often open to interpretation
• To better understand the phenomenon

  Research definition
• Inherent link to measurement
• More attention to other factors like environment, developmental theory, severity, chronicity, etc
• Unsubstantiated


  Unfounded, not indicated
• Substantiated


  Services related to family preservation, protection, out of home placement
• Present people with descriptions of a case and vary particular pieces of information

  Vignette studies
• Help us examine questions related to definitional issues
• How do details about the case influence one's characterization of maltreatment?

  How does the background of the assessor influence one's characterization of maltreatment?
• What affects our judgment?
• Factors that affect our judgment


  • Parental characteristics
  • Intent and demographics
  • Professional background of the assessor
• Parental intent


  Willfully inflicted act vs parental ignorance
• In the presence of severe injuries Turbett and O'toole found that black children are nearly twice as likely to be seen as victims


  Similar findings with socioeconomic findings
• Other more recent studies like Hansen have not replicated these findings
• Ards et al: Picture of black and white baby in same room (messy, etc)


  More people would say that the black baby met the state's definition of neglect, regardless of the race of the participant
• Background of the assessor


  • Social workers and police rate incidents as most severe
  • Lawyers rate incidents as less severe
  • Pediatricians generally fall in the middle
• We lack universal definitions
• Definitions may be biased by characteristics of the case beyond specific incidents of maltreatment
• Definitions may be biased by professional and personal background
• Sources of info for measurement


  • CPS records
  • Self-report
  • Observation
• Dimensions to assess


  • Type
  • Frequency
  • Chronicity
  • Severity
• Best approach is multi method, multi sourced
• Challenges of research: Measurement, Testing Causation, Confounds
• Structural changes: changes in how the brain is structured or built, such as the volume/size of different brain regions or number of connections between regions
• Functional changes: Changes in how the brain functions to complete tasks, we can look at patterns of activation and measures of efficiency
• Deficits in emotion processing
• Higher internalizing problems
• Perceptual biases for threatening information
• In general, there is not enough evidence to convey that abuse and neglect affects the size of the amygdala
• There is strong evidence that institutional care results in significant changes to the amygdala