NCJ Number
144480
Journal
Child Abuse and Neglect Volume: 17 Issue: 4 Dated: (July-August 1993) Pages: 441-454
Date Published
1993
Length
14 pages
Annotation
To determine some of the parameters of psychological abuse of latency-age children, this study compared two respondent groups including an association of professional social workers and a group of citizens who completed a questionnaire based on 20 vignettes depicting various types of abuse. Respondents also answered questions regarding their age, gender, parental status, and experience with child abuse.
Abstract
Both groups of respondents recognized the vignettes to represent serious incidents of child abuse; the citizens, not the social workers, proposed a higher level of intervention. Social workers tended to favor counseling as an initial approach, before resorting to the courts to rectify a domestic situation. Only "immoral parental behavior" failed to elicit concern from either group. The groups found these types of behavior to be abusive: confining the child in a small space, humiliating the child in public, singling one child in the family out for rejection or exploitation, abusing the child verbally, encouraging a child into delinquency, threatening, denying a child prescribed psychological treatment, not allowing social or emotional growth, and not providing a loving and supportive environment. Only age seemed to have some influence on the respondents' ratings, supporting the notion that there is a general standard or societal norm about the psychological abuse of children. 3 tables and 29 references