PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL MALTREATMENT IN MIDDLE CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE

Although maltreatment is known to have detrimental effects on socioemo tional development, the relation of those effects to type of maltreatm ent and child age is not clear. Most studies either focus solely on ph ysical abuse or do not differentiate among types of maltreatment. Furt hermore, most concentrate on young children. Studies of psychological maltreatment in young children indicate that physical abuse and psycho logical maltreatment tend to co-occur, severity of injury is not relat ed to severity of psychological maltreatment or to developmental probl ems, and severity of psychological maltreatment is related to developm ental outcomes. The present study investigated (a) relations among typ es of physical and psychological maltreatment and (b) their effect on development in an ethnically diverse sample of maltreated school-age c hildren and adolescents. The results indicated that, as in young child ren, physical and psychological maltreatment co-occurred in most cases . As with young children, severity of emotional abuse was related to s everity of physical neglect in school-age children; among adolescents, however, it was related to severity of physical injury. Moreover, sev erity of emotional abuse was related to both behavior problems and dep ression. The differences between the patterns of effects for school-ag e children and those for adolescents are discussed, as are implication s of the findings for intervention.