Child Maltreatment & Trauma (Final) Flashcards
Definition: Physical abuse
Punching, beating kicking, burning, shaking, or otherwise physically harming a child. Often unintentional and resulting from severe physical punishment.
Definition: Neglect
Child’s basic needs are not being met. Different types of neglect: physical, educational, emotional.
Definition: Sexual abuse
Touching gents, intercourse, exhibitionism, production of pornographic photos.
Definition: Emotional abuse
Repeated acts by parents or caregivers that could or have caused serious behavioural, cognitive, emotional or mental disorders.
Epidemiology: Challenges
Challenges of studying incidence and prevalence of child base: People may not be wiling to report this. Only know identified cases. Retrospective report: Many of the studies sample adults and ask them to report what they experienced as a child.
Epidemiology: Child Maltreatment
Neglect is most common experience of maltreatment. Studies and treatment have focused primarily on physical and sexual abuse.
Epidemiology: Demographic characteristics
Age: Younger children are more likely to be neglected, older children are more likely to be sexually abused. Gender: Girls are more likely t be sexually abused. Most common perpetrator of sexual abuse teds to be male family members. Higher rates of physical abuse and neglect in single-parent families. Poverty is a risk factor.
Epidemiology: Upward Social Mobility
Countries where there’s more potential for social mobility have lower rates of childhood maltreatment. That is independent of income inequality and poverty rates. If people are able to move up the economic ladder, there tends to be less childhood maltreatment (irregardless of income or poverty rates).
How did COVID-19 impact childhood maltreatment? (Park & Walsh, 2022)
Seems to be evidence for notable increases in childhood maltreatment during lockdowns. Effect occurs across the globe. Effect was stronger in low and middle income countries.
Developmental Course of Maltreatment
Children experiencing maltreatment must learn to cope with challenges in environment. These adaptations may cause problems in other contexts. Maltreatment shapes: Brain development, Physiological reactivity to stress, Understanding of emotion.
Maltreatment and Understanding of Emotion
Being abused or neglected by a parent exposes you to different emotional experiences. May change your understanding and experience of emotions overall. E.g., if you are constantly exposed to anger from a parent, and if recognizing that anger was adaptive, would that change your perception of emotion?
Child Maltreatment & Understanding of Emotion: Emotion recognition task (Pollak et al., 2000)
17 physically abused children. 16 physically neglected children. 15 children with no abuse history. Between 3-5 years old. Children were presented with 25 vignettes describing one of 5 emotions: happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, anger.
Child Maltreatment & Understanding of Emotion: Emotion recognition task (Pollak et al., 2000): 1) Sensitivity to differences between facial expressions
How accurate is the child? Number of times a child picks “angry” correctly. Some of the correct answers will be lucky guesses, so subtract the number of times child says “angry” incorrectly. In general, found that neglected children were less sensitive to differences in facial expressions.
Child Maltreatment & Understanding of Emotion: Emotion recognition task (Pollak et al., 2000): 2) Bias towards labeling a particular stimulus as a particular emotion.
Extent to which a particular label may be more likely than others. Physically abused children show a bias for angry faces - more likely to pick angry faces. Neglected children show a bias for sad faces - more like to pick sad faces.
Child Maltreatment & Understanding of Emotion: Emotion recognition task (Pollak et al., 2000): Two possible reasons for findings
1) Visually, children cannot discriminate between the faces.
2) They have different understanding of the emotional displays.
Child Maltreatment & Understanding of Emotion: Emotion discrimination task (Pollak et al., 2000)
Shown two photographs of models showing emotions and asked “same or different”. No differences between three groups on this task. It is not that physically abused children and neglected children cannot see the differences.
Child Maltreatment & Understanding of Emotion: Emotion differentiation task (Pollak et al., 2000)
Children shown photographs of two models and asked to rate the similarity of the facia expressions. Six shelfs lined up horizontally. One photograph placed on the far right. Child indicated similarity by placing the other photo.
Child Maltreatment & Understanding of Emotion: Emotion differentiation task (Pollak et al., 2000): Results
Neglected children perceived less distinction between angry, sad, fearful facial expression. Physically abused children and control children perceived more distinction between anger and other negative emotions. Experience of maltreatment changes understanding of emotion.
Child Maltreatment & Understanding Emotion: Gradual appearance of expression Study (Pollak & Sin, 2002)
Presented children with photos displaying angry, sad, fearful, and happy facial images. Images are slowly filled in randomly, so that the expression gradually appears. Dependent variable is how early the child can identify the photo. At 3.3 second intervals, more of photo was filled in. At each interval, children were prompted to identify the emotion. Had to rate their confidence in their choice from (1)Guess to (5) Certainty.
Child Maltreatment & Understanding Emotion: Gradual appearance of expression Study (Pollak & Sin, 2002): Results
Found that children who had experienced physical abuse needed less information to accurately identify angry faces than control children (Note that when these children made mistakes they were not more likely to say “anger”).
Physically abused children needed more information than control children to identify sad faces.
No difference for fearful and happy faces.
Diathesis-Stress Models
Genetic predisposition interacting with maltreatment to lead to later psychopathology. Conduct disorder: MAOA activity interacting with maltreatment. Low MAOA activity and maltreatment predicting antisocial behaviour in adulthood.
Diathesis-Stress Models: Caspi et al., 2023 findings
Studied depression. Serotonin transported gene 5-HTTLPR - 2 versions: short allele and a long allele. In adults, short allele is associated with increased depression, but only for those who experience significant life stress. Diathesis - short allele. Stress - life stress.
Diathesis-Stress Models: Serotonin Transporter Gene x Maltreatment
A second study replicated the Caspi et al. finding. Social support played a protective role: The moderator was itself moderated by something else. Maltreated children with a short allele and poor social support had rates of depression 2x higher than maltreated children with a short allele and social support.
Serotonin Transporter Gene (5-HTTLPR) X Maltreatment - Bleys et al., 2018
A number of studies did not find the interaction between life stress (more broadly) and the serotonin transporter gene. 2018 meta-analysis of 51 studies. found evidence for a small but significant interaction between 5-HTTPLR serotonin transporter gene moderating relation between life stress and depression. Research still ongoing.
