Publications - Child Abuse and Neglect

One Twin Was Hurt, the Other Was Not. Their Adult Mental Health Diverged., by Ellen Barry, The New York Times, Mar 6 2024.

“Why do twins, who share so many genetic and environmental inputs, diverge as adults in their experience of mental illness? On Wednesday, a team of researchers from the University of Iceland and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden reported new findings on the role played by childhood trauma. Their study of 25,252 adult twins in Sweden, published in JAMA Psychiatry, found that those who reported one or more trauma in childhood — physical or emotional neglect or abuse, rape, sexual abuse, hate crimes or witnessing domestic violence — were 2.4 times as likely to be diagnosed with a psychiatric illness as those who did not. If a person reported one or more of these experiences, the odds of being diagnosed with a mental illness climbed sharply, by 52 percent for each additional adverse experience. Among participants who reported three or more adverse experiences, nearly a quarter had a psychiatric diagnosis of depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, substance abuse disorder or stress disorder. To disentangle the effects of these traumas from genetic or environmental factors, the researchers narrowed the pool to “discordant” pairs, in which only one twin reported maltreatment in childhood. An analysis of 6,852 twins from these discordant pairs found that childhood maltreatment was still linked with adult mental illness, though not as strongly as in the full cohort. A twin who reported maltreatment was 1.2 times as likely to suffer from a mental illness as the unaffected twin in identical twin pairs, and 1.7 times as likely in fraternal twin pairs. This effect was especially pronounced among subjects who reported experiencing sexual abuse, rape and physical neglect. ”

Black Kids In California More Likely To Be Hospitalized For Police-Related Injuries, by Deepa Shivaram, NPR, Sep 9 2021.

“A new study out of California shows that Black boys and girls are hospitalized from police violence at a rate far higher than their white peers.  The researchers from the University of California, Berkeley looked into injuries of children and teens caused by law enforcement between 2005-2017. They used data from emergency department visits and inpatients hospitalizations in the state of California.  Black boys ages 15-19 had the highest rate of hospitalization due to police violence, but the widest racial gap existed in the 10-14 age group. Black boys and girls ages 10-14 are injured at 5.3 and 6.7 times, respectively, the rate for white boys and girls, the study says.  "These findings suggest that the protections of childhood are not afforded to all children and contribute to evidence on policing as a pathway through which structural racism operates in young people's lives," said Kriszta Farkas, one of the researchers. ”

Cash for Kids Comes to the United States, by Annie Lowrey, The Atlantic, Jul 14 2021.

“Beginning this week, the IRS will start sending monthly, no-strings-attached cash payments to an estimated 65 million children living in low- and middle-income families, potentially slashing the country’s child poverty rate by 45 percent.  The new policy will become tangible when money starts hitting bank accounts this week. An estimated 88 percent of recipients will not need to do anything to get the cash—the IRS will send the money automatically. But an estimated 4 million to 8 million eligible children are at risk of missing out, because their parents or guardians do not need to file taxes or are not filing taxes—and because they might not even know the complicated, obscure-sounding, and scarcely advertised policy exists. ”

Breaking the Cycle of Child Abuse, by Elizabeth Hartney, Ph.D., verywellmind, Jul 11 2018.

“Child abuse is known to repeat itself from generation to generation. Although not universal, the children of people with addictions are at higher risk of all types of abuse, and of developing addictions. The reasons why people who were sexually abused in childhood go on to have abusive relationships in adulthood, either as an abuser or as a victim, are complex and well documented. But is breaking the cycle of child abuse possible? Or does the experience of child abuse mean that abusive relationships are inevitable? ”

Parents with Severe Childhood Trauma More Likely to Have Kids with Behavior Issues, by Traci Pedersen, Psych Central, Jul 10 2018.

“Parents who faced severe trauma and stress in their own childhood are more likely to see  behavioral health problems in their children, according to a new study published in the journal Pediatrics...The findings reveal that the children of parents who themselves had four or more adverse childhood experiences were at double the risk of having attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and were four times more likely to have mental health problems. In addition, a mother’s childhood experiences had a stronger adverse effect on a child’s behavioral health than the father’s experiences. ”

Health and behavior problems can linger after child abuse, by Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, Mar 20 2017.

“Children who have suffered from abuse or neglect may have physical or behavioral health problems even after the mistreatment stops, new guidelines for pediatricians emphasize...Although some children recover from adversity, traumatic experiences can result in significant disruption of normal development, researchers note in Pediatrics. Children, like adults, can develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that may be accompanied by depression, anxiety or disruptive or defiant behaviors, for example. Child abuse early in life is also a risk factor for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ”

Doctors Devise A Better Way To Diagnose Shaken Baby Syndrome, by Tara Haelle, National Public Radio (NPR)- Public Health, Jul 29 2015.

“Researchers have developed and validated a tool doctors can use to distinguish between head injuries resulting from abuse and those from accidents or medical conditions. The method, described in the journal Pediatrics on Monday, asks doctors to check for six other injuries, each of which increases the likelihood that a head injury resulted from severe shaking, blunt force or both. ”

Institutional neglect changes kids’ brain structure, by Reuters, Fox News, Jan 27 2015.

“Kids who were raised in a Romanian institution for abandoned children have smaller heads, smaller brains, and different white matter structure than similar kids who were moved into high-quality foster care at an early age. Even those who were moved into foster care by age two have noticeably different brains from children raised in biological families. The findings show that the brain's wiring "is profoundly interrupted and perturbed and changed by neglect,” said senior author Charles A. Nelson of Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. ”

The Day My Daddy Lost His Temper: Empowering Kids That Have Witnessed Domestic Violence (The Empowering Kids Series), by Santana McCleary, C. , Jun 22 2014.

“The Empowering Kids Series is a collection of empathically reflective stories told from the perspective of young children. These books are meant to be used by parents and mental health providers to facilitate the child’s verbalization of their feelings and experiences, thereby advancing the healing process and are aimed at validating the readers’ experiences and feelings, thereby reducing feelings of shame and isolation. ”

Orphans' Lonely Beginnings Reveal How Parents Shape A Child's Brain, by Jon Hamilton, NPR, Feb 24 2014.

“Parents do a lot more than make sure a child has food and shelter, researchers say. They play a critical role in brain development. More than a decade of research on children raised in institutions shows that "neglect is awful for the brain," says Charles Nelson, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital. Without someone who is a reliable source of attention, affection and stimulation, he says, "the wiring of the brain goes awry." The result can be long-term mental and emotional problems. ”

Yelling, threatening parents harm teens' mental health, by Allison Bond, Reuters , Dec 10 2013.

“Threatening or screaming at teenagers may put them at higher risk for depression and disruptive behaviors such as rule-breaking, a new study suggests. "The take home point is that the verbal behaviors matter," Annette Mahoney, who worked on the study, said. She's a professor of psychology at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. "It can be easy to overlook that, but our study shows that the verbal hostility is really relevant, particularly for mothers who scream and hit, and for fathers who do either one," Mahoney told Reuters Health. ”

Childhood Maltreatment Can Leave Scars In The Brain, by Jon Hamilton, NPR , Nov 4 2013.

“Maltreatment during childhood can lead to long-term changes in brain circuits that process fear, researchers say. This could help explain why children who suffer abuse are much more likely than others to develop problems like anxiety and depression later on ”

Protecting Children From Toxic Stress, by David Bornstein, New York Times , Oct 30 2013.

“For more than a decade, researchers have understood that frequent or continual stress on young children who lack adequate protection and support from adults, is strongly associated with increases in the risks of lifelong health and social problems. ”

Child Neglect Accounts for 75% of Reported Abuse Cases, by Michelle Healy, USA Today , Sep 12 2013.

“A new Institute of Medicine report looks at trends in child abuse and neglect, research, treatments, and effective interventions 20 years after an initial study shed light on the problem. ”

Spilled Milk: Based On A True Story, by Randis, K.L., 2013.

“ Brooke Nolan is a battered child who makes an anonymous phone call about the escalating brutality in her home. When social services jeopardize her safety condemning her to keep her father's secret, it's a glass of spilled milk at the dinner table that forces her to speak about the cruelty she's been hiding. In her pursuit for safety and justice Brooke battles a broken system that pushes to keep her father in the home. When jury members and a love interest congregate to inspire her to fight, she risks losing the support of family and comes to the realization that some people simply do not want to be saved. Spilled Milk is a novel of shocking narrative, triumph and resiliency. ”