Essay Child Abuse and Neglect

Depression and anxiety, for example, may make a person more likely to smoke, abuse alcohol or drugs, or overeat. High-risk behaviors, in turn, can lead to long-term physical health problems, such as sexually transmitted diseases, cancer, and obesity. Not all children who have been abused or neglected will experience long-term consequences, but they may have an increased susceptibility. The immediate physical effects of abuse or neglect can be relatively minor (bruises or cuts) or severe (broken bones, hemorrhage, or even death). In some cases, the physical effects are temporary; however, the pain and suffering they cause a child should not be discounted. Child abuse and neglect can have a multitude of long-term effects on physical health. NSCAW researchers found that, at some point during the 3 years following a maltreatment investigation, 28 percent of children had a chronic health condition (Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation [ACF/OPRE], 2007). Below are some outcomes other researchers have identified: Impaired brain development. Child abuse and neglect have been shown to cause important regions of the brain to fail to form or grow properly, resulting in impaired development. These alterations in brain maturation have long-term consequences for cognitive, language, and academic abilities and are connected with mental health disorders (Tarullo,

Children who have been abused are left with more than just physical scars. They have many psychological, emotional, and behavioral problems as well. Their social lives are affected dramatically, and they suffer lifelong effects. (Lambert) Children tend to

Neglect trauma is a rising problem, as other forms of trauma, particularly abuse trauma, have decreased of the last couple of years, neglect trauma is rising. In 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Human Services, of all the maltreatment cases “71.1% of those were neglect” (Kazemaian, 2011). Many researchers, (Mersky and Reynolds’, Dierkhising, Kerig, Buffington, Ford, Ryan, and Maxfield) have studied the topic of neglect trauma and juvenile delinquency extensively, and have all

Secondly, stress falls on describing and classifying child abuse and its prevalence in children under six years of age. After a brief outline of the areas in which a victim is challenged, focus shifts onward to specific emotional and social drawbacks that ensue. A more in-depth account of this matter follows, enlisting Alan Schore's right-brain correlations, an analysis based on the phenomenon of dissociation, and other probable prospects for the victim.

The effect of toxic stress on a child’s early development is crucial to their future. It is proven that children who have experienced neglect and abuse have different CT scans of the brain, than that of a child who has not been neglected nor abused. The effects of neglect on children’s brains that are still developing are detrimental, and can cause behavioral, physiological, and also target their cognitive and language centers of the brain. Neglect and Child abuse are most prominent in foster care homes, most children who have been through the system experience some sort of abuse before and/or during their presence in the system. While placing children into equally stressful situations as an attempt to lessen the stress, we are creating a deadly cycle. After the child has been neglected and the neurological destruction is prominent, the effects of that neglect will arise into a new situation down the road. (Health). It is crucial that we know what is going on in these foster homes, so the cycle is not one to be repeated. The purpose of the

factors in a majority of cases of emotional abuse and neglect. In fact, neglect is the

In recent years, there has been a surge of research into early brain development (Child Info). This is due to the ever-increasing issue of childhood neglect, abuse and the problems that arise with it. Neglect is the absence of critical organizing experiences at key times during development (Perry, 2002a). Childhood neglect can lead to cognitive and communicative deficiencies later in life.

Trauma caused by experiences of child abuse and neglect appears to have serious effects on the developing brain (“Effects of Child Abuse and Neglect for Children and Adolescents”, 2014) Consequences of child abuse and neglect can affect all avenues of development; being physical, developmental, emotional, psychological and social, all of which are interrelated. It can also lead to mental health problems, learning and developmental problems along with behavioural and physical problems. After reviewing the information on abuse and neglect, a research proposal that was generated is looking at the ways in which neglect and abuse impact the ability to optimize working memory. It is known that abuse and neglect significantly impacts language development because it can interfere with the brains ability to develop properly. However there are still many avenues that could be studied further. What exactly is being impacted and how? The more studies that can be conducted, the more information the

In many cases of neglect, there has been an association with the brain failing to form appropriately. This causes impaired physical, mental, and emotional development (DePanfilis, 2006). A child's brain learns to adapt to a less than positive environment and this stunts the process of normal development. The brains of neglected children are not integrated and this causes difficulties in emotional, social, and cognitive development. The sensitive period, during the first two years of life, is a critical time in which brain activity faces severe psychosocial deprivation if faced with neglect and is unlikely to be recovered (Vanderwert, Marshall, Nelson III, Zeanah & Fox, 2010).

However, according to the article by Wright, Crawford, and Castillo (2009), the emotional neglect that a child may experience “might be more strongly linked to later dissociative symptoms” (p. 62). When a child experiences emotional neglect, Wright, Crawford, and Castillo (2009) state that there is “some evidence of how shame and other overwhelming feelings associated with an abusive childhood may lead to dissociative tendencies in adulthood” (p. 65). When a child is emotionally neglected, it means that his/her emotional needs are not met. Due to this, the child may experience behavioral issues, moodiness, anxiety and/or depression. In class when we talked about the statistics of child abuse, it was stated that 73.8% of children reported were neglected. This is the most common type of emotional and mental abuse that has been reported thus far. When it comes to the science of neglect, still-face experiments can be performed to see how neglect affects a child. When a caregiver does not respond to their child, this causes the child to get stressed. The brain is built to get a response from someone, namely the caregiver. This is known as brain architecture. When a child is not responded to, this is what leads to neglect. The more a parent does not respond to their child, the more toxic stress the child will experience. This consistent stress is detrimental to the child’s well-being. If the neglect

It is stated that “each year, abuse and neglect costs an estimated $80 billion in direct costs of hospitalization, law enforcement and child welfare and the indirect costs of special education, juvenile, and adult criminal justice, adult homelessness, and lost work productivity” (Schulte, 2013). The cost alone reflects what all goes into rectifying this problem. Also, because abuse and neglect has been shown to influence the amygdala, which is a part of the brain that controls emotions such as fear and anxiety, and change the prefrontal cortex functions that oversee planning, thinking, and the decision-making process, there are many behavioral and academic problems that surface. Thus, it is recommended and it does make sense to create a strategy to comprehend, treat, and prevent child abuse and neglect on a national level. By doing this, we can better assist victims and lessen the costs of these issues for all

Every year, child abuse and neglect affect more than one million children nation-wide (Currie and Tekin 1). Along with this, child abuse is the source of severe injury to more than 500,000 children and the death of over 1,500 children (Currie and Tekin 1). These outrageously large numbers reveal the extent to which child abuse and neglect impact society; however, they do not acknowledge the effect abuse can have on a child’s life and the repercussions that may occur in both the individual’s childhood and adulthood. While the effects most certainly include physical pain and possibly future disabilities, child abuse and neglect can also affects the child’s psychological welfare. Psychological effects are often more difficult to recognize,

The researchers investigated the theory of exposure to early childhood abuse or neglect leads to damaging effects on the victim’s brain development, and neurobiological alterations (Nikulina and Widom, 2013, p. 417). Stress and early trauma on cortical development is hypothesized to cause academic and cognitive limitations concerning situations of maltreatment, in addition to insufficiencies in nonverbal reasoning and executive functioning in middle adulthood (Nikulina and Widom, 2013, p. 417). This study examines if child neglect and abuse foresees development of nonverbal reasoning ability and executive functioning in middle adulthood, in addition it hypothesizes if PTSD (Post Traumatic stress Disorder) adds to the likelihood of the development

With child abuse and neglect being so prevalent globally, it is important to recognize why these types of maltreatment occur and is a relevant topic for all to explore. Many are interested in how child abuse and neglect affect the individuals who are victims as well as the use and efficacy of treatment procedures. Child abuse has serious physical and psycho-social consequences which adversely affect the health and overall well-being of a child. There are long-term consequences of experiencing these forms of maltreatment. Awareness and understanding needs to be brought to this devastatingly common crisis and the advancement of child abuse and neglect prevention needs to be encouraged.

Child abuse is a term impacted by copious multidimensional and interactive factors that relate to its origins and effects upon a child's developing capacities and which may act as a catalyst to broader, longer-term implications for adulthood. Such maltreatment may be of a sexual, physical, emotional or neglectful nature, each form holding a proportion of shared and abuse-specific psychological considerations (Mash & Wolfe, 2005). Certainly in terms of the effects / impairments of abuse, developmental factors have been identified across all classifications of child abuse, leading to a comparably greater risk of emotional / mental health problems in adult life within the general population