Drug Abuse Effect On Cognitive Impairment

It is recognised that that it is abuse when someone inflicts harm or fails to prevent it. Children may be abused in a family or in an institutional or community setting, by those known to them or by a stranger, for example, via the internet. Child abuse can have major long-term effects on all aspects of a child's health, development and well being. The main forms of ill-treatments are:

“The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act” states’ that “child abuse is the leading cause of death in children under the age of eighteen.” Child abuse occurs when adults inflict violence and cruelty upon children. Abuse is any willful act that results in physical, mental, or sexual injury that causes or is likely to cause the child to be physically, mental, or emotionally impaired. Abuse happens to children of any age, sex, race, religion, and social status.

What is child abuse? From the word “abuse” we can understand that it is some sort of a maltreatment of a child, causing harm and damage both to his physical and psychological well-being. At the Federal level, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) describes child abuse and neglect as: “any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse, or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.” Child abuse is a very substantial and widely spread problem in U.S. affecting children of any age, gender, race, background or income, with more than 1.8 million investigations done every year and on average, killing more than 5 children every day. The main issue of child abuse is that the abuser is usually someone a child loves or depends on (a parent, sibling, coach, neighbor, etc.), who violates child’s trust putting personal interests first, therefore official numbers of how many children suffer maltreatment might be not accurate enough as remarkable amount of these cases go unreported. Each case of child abuse is unique, with a lot of individual factors involved, nevertheless, we can distinguish some of the common causes, such as poverty, lack of education, depression, mental or physical health

The published articles in this literature review all prove evidence that child abuse can negatively affect those children in either their adolescences or adulthood, or even in both. None of the articles explore if those children abused later abuse their future children, however a study by Ehrensaft,

Often times we are unaware of events that go on behind closed doors. Abuse (mental, physical, and sexual) can alter a child’s behavior, personality, and trust. Often times these children will be unwilling to participate in any activity or lesson. Not only do these traumatic events affect the child now, but it can leave lasting cognitive and behavioral problems. A child who has been abused “can be detected only through the emotional and behavioral abnormalities that it causes (G. Jacobi, 2010).”

As soon as birth, children are exposed to new things; new life experiences that will develop the path of which direction their life will take. Adolescence is the most important time in a child’s life because it is where they learn appropriate behavior from their family and the outside world. Some children are able to use these experiences to differentiate at an early age what is right and what is wrong and hopefully carry this into adulthood. What happens when children are exposed to the wrong experiences at an early age? What happens if children assume that what they are seeing is okay because one of their parents are

According to the National Council on Child Abuse and Family Violence, parental substance abuse is major factor on child abuse and

As physical abuse resulting in brain damage often has ramifications for psychological development (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2013). Problems with psychological development can surface as high-risk behaviours. The adverse outcomes of abuse vary depending on exposure and experience of individuals, not every child is affected in the same way (CFCA, 2014). However, experiencing physical abuse between the ages of 0 to 12 impacts on their quality of life as an adult (Blue knot foundation, 2017). This paper deals with children who have suffered physical abuse between the ages 0 to 12. Focusing on effects for behavioural development at hallmarks, including; infancy, toddler age, preschool, primary school and

One of the mental health issues that could occur from childhood abuse is the use of illicit drugs or alcohol abuse. Childhood abuse is related to drug or alcohol dependence, more than any other psychiatric disorder. Survivors of childhood abuse are 13 percent more likely to abuse alcohol and 26 percent likely to abuse drugs. Male child abuse victims with more six or more childhood abuse experiences are over 4000% more likely to use intravenous drugs as adults. The higher rates of substance abuse problems among adult survivors is to self-medicate from symptoms common with anxiety or depression. Childhood abuse typically ends up in addictive behaviors, but it doesn’t have to. A good support system and care from the right people will help adults abused as children to live a normal life. Along with a higher risk of addiction,

At any given point, the average individual experiences a temporary lapse in memory resulting in the inability to recall details of information (i.e. forgetting). The working memory, or short-term memory, is often more sharp in recalling the details of an experience whereas long-term memory is usually a little less detailed due to decay, displacement, or interference (Memory Psychology, 2016, p.1). The functional use of memory gives people the ability to carry out tasks and recall important pieces of information, but it can be influenced to change from optimal performance in the event of unfortunate circumstances such as a head injury, a stroke, or an illness. Studies have shown that the use and abuse of drugs can also influence the dysfunction of mental processes, which has led to the study of how drug use impacts memory and neuropsychological function. In 2011, a study was conducted to determine how drugs can influence memory capabilities in university students. This study focused on the impact the use of a few types of drugs have on prospective memory from the evaluation of answers from self-reporting questionnaires and the scoring from two objective tasks, providing the necessary empirical evidence that shows how substance use influences changes in cognitive function and memory.

Despite all these tragic losses that result from substance abuse, the most saddening byproduct of substance abuse is the neglect, abuse and maltreatment of children whose parents are addicted to drugs.

INTRODUCTION: “Child Abuse occurs when a parent or a care taker physically, emotionally, or sexually mistreats or neglects a child resulting in the physical, emotional, or sexual harm or imminent risk of harm or exploitation, or in extreme cases the death of a child,” child abuse is a big deal because in today’s society many children face abuse, there are many effects and reasons as to why a child may be abuse.

“The academic performance of maltreated children reflects their cognitive impairments; both abuse and neglect have been associated with large deficits on both mathematics and language tests, with neglect having the strongest association with poor achievement (Eckenrode et al., 1993; Wodarski et al., 1990). The performance of children who have been abused reflects on the way they handle their academics. The stress can cause them to be unfocused and unaware of their surroundings in an educational setting. This can be due to the fear they have from their conditions and from the treatment they receive at home. Their minds are so occupied with fear and the unknown, that they forget to focus on what will benefit them in the future- their

Substance Abuse is a prominent issue in our society and always will be, but it is important to look at not only the user, but also who else is affected by substance abuse. Adolescents are put at an unfair advantage and are often exposed to substances at a very young age, which could predict their future of addiction. Research shows that at least two thirds of all child protective service cases involve caregivers or parents that have a substance abuse problem. I believe that it is a persons right to ruin their own life, but it takes a very selfish person to knowingly ruin the life of children around them. I believe it is important to look at all the negative affects a caregivers abuse can have on adolescents in order to understand how

“Child abuse or maltreatment constitutes all forms of physical and/or emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect or negligent treatment or commercial or other exploitation, resulting in actual or potential harm to the child’s health, survival, development or dignity in the context of a relationship of responsibility, trust or power”. (World Health Organization)