Professional Documents
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C
hild maltreatment is an urgent public health
problem for many reasons, not least of which concern
the negative effects of early maltreatment on later
social and psychological functioning. Of particular
CHILD MALTREATMENT, Vol. 12, No. 3, August 2007 233-245
DOI: 10.1177/1077559507301841
2007 Sage Publications
234
235
extent to which physical abuse contributes to particular subsequent problems is an important task for
the field, as is understanding the extent to which the
effects of maltreatment on subsequent problems are
moderated by factors such as race and gender.
The Present Study
In the present study, we sought to build on and
extend the existing literature on the effects of early
physical abuse on later aggression and delinquency
by examining the links between early physical abuse
and adolescent violent delinquency. Two main
research questions guide the present study. First,
does early physical abuse relate to violent delinquency in late adolescence and early adulthood,
independent of potential confounding variables? We
hypothesized that physical abuse would relate to violent delinquency, above and beyond the effects of
other ecological and child risk factors. Generally, previous studies have not controlled for a wide range of
demographic and other variables that could account
for the effect of abuse (for examples of exceptions,
see Grotevant et al., 2006; Widom & White, 1997).
This lack means that differences in adjustment attributed to experiencing abuse or not could actually be
the result of differences between these groups on
other risk factors such as low SES, family stress, or difficult child temperament. Our second question was
whether associations between early physical abuse
and subsequent violent delinquency differ by race or
gender. We hypothesized that physical abuse would
have worse effects on African American than on
European American youth and worse effects on
females than on males. We also sought to examine
the extent to which physical abuse affects violent
delinquency, as opposed to other nonviolent delinquency and other types of aggression. From previous
research, it appears that physical abuse is related to a
wide array of subsequent problems, both violent and
nonviolent. However, it is also possible that experiencing the violence of physical child abuse is an especially important predictor of subsequent engagement
in violent delinquency. Last, given the broad range of
problematic outcomes associated with early maltreatment, we examined the links between early physical
abuse and late adolescent sequelae in four other
domains: work, romantic relationships, parenthood,
and mental health. This studys prospective longitudinal design, use of a community-based sample, focus
on the effects of physical abuse (vs. maltreatment in
general), and inclusion of a comprehensive set of relevant covariates help to overcome many limitations
of previous research.
236
METHOD
Participants
The families in the current investigation were participants in the ongoing, multisite, longitudinal study
called the Child Development Project (see Dodge,
Bates, & Pettit, 1990). Participants were recruited
when the children entered kindergarten in 1987 or
1988 at three sites: Knoxville and Nashville, Tennessee,
and Bloomington, Indiana. Parents were approached
at random during kindergarten preregistration and
asked if they would participate in a longitudinal study
of child development. About 15% of children at the
targeted schools did not preregister. These participants were recruited on the first day of school or by
subsequent contact. Of those asked, approximately
75% agreed to participate. At the first assessment, the
sample consisted of 585 families. Males composed 52%
of the sample. Of the sample, 81% were European
American, 17% were African American, and 2% were
from other ethnic groups. The present study includes
only the European American and African American
participants (n = 574) because there were too few participants from other ethnic groups to conduct meaningful comparisons. Follow-up assessments were
annually conducted through age 21. Of the original
574 families, 81% (n = 465) provided age-21 data for
the present analyses. The participants who provided
age-21 data were of higher SES in kindergarten (M =
41.51, SD = 13.60) than were those who did not provide age-21 data (M = 32.15, SD = 12.85), F(1, 567) =
45.03, p < .05, and were more likely to be European
American, 2(1) = 24.74, p < .001, and female, 2(1) =
14.60, p < .001.
Procedures and Measures
Early physical abuse. During the summer before the
children entered kindergarten, detailed interviews
regarding childrens developmental history were
conducted with mothers in their homes. Mothers
responded to a variety of questions regarding the
childs misbehavior, who typically dealt with the
childs misbehavior, which discipline strategies were
used, whether the parent ever used physical discipline, the most severe forms of physical discipline
that were used, whether the child was ever disciplined severely enough that he or she may have been
hurt, and whether the parent ever worried that
someone may have harmed the child. For each of
two eras in the childs life (age 12 months to 4 years
and age 4 to 5 years), the mother was asked to openly
respond to the question, Do you remember any
times that your child was hit severely enough by any
adult to be hurt or to require medical attention? If
237
238
violent delinquency and other socially relevant outcomes. We tested our hypotheses using a series of 2
(abused: yes or no) 2 (race: European American or
African American) 2 (gender: male or female)
analyses of variance. Because some of the outcomes
were dichotomous, we conducted supplementary
chi-square analyses and logistic regressions to test
the robustness of the ANOVAs with dichotomous
outcomes (see Lunney, 1970, for a simulation study
related to this issue). The findings across these
three types of analyses were consistent. Therefore, to
be consistent across outcomes, we report just the
ANOVA results below. The main effects of abuse are
summarized in Table 2. The first five columns show
the main effects of abuse without controlling for
other risk factors associated with abuse. The second
five columns depict the main effects of abuse controlling for childhood SES, single-parent status,
family stress, maternal social support, child exposure
to violence, child temperament, and child health.
Consistent with hypotheses, adolescents who had
been physically abused in the first 5 years of life were
more likely to have been arrested as a juvenile for
violent and nonviolent offenses, although they were
not more likely to self-report serious violent or nonviolent delinquent behaviors. They were also more
likely to be the perpetrator of romantic relationship
violence and to have externalizing behavior problems. In addition, young adults who had been physically abused were at risk for nonviolent problem
behaviors: They were less likely to have graduated
from high school and were more likely to have been
fired in the past year, to have been a teen parent, and
to have been pregnant or to have impregnated someone in the past year while not married (see Table 2).
As shown in the table, almost all of these effects were
found both with and without the inclusion of the
covariates. Although the inclusion of the control
variables rendered the effect of abuse nonsignificant
for two variables (perpetrating romantic relationship
violence and externalizing problems during young
adulthood), for all other outcomes the effect of
abuse was attenuated but remained significant.
The differences, even after including the covariates, were sizable in magnitude. Adjusted means
indicate that participants who had been abused were
almost twice as likely to have been arrested; were
more than twice as likely to have committed all three
types of offenses documented in the juvenile court
records, to have been a teen parent, and to have
been pregnant or to have impregnated someone in
the past year while not married; and were more than
3 times as likely to have been fired in the past year.
239
.10*
.02
.14*
.08
.28*
.21*
.33*
.07
.16*
.13* .10 .16*
.06
.05
.07
.23*
.23* .02
.01 .03 .21*
.09 .03 .11*
.26*
.09*
.10*
.13*
.09*
.14*
.12*
.05
.12*
.07
.21*
.17*
.05
.11*
.12*
.02
a. Age-5 assessment.
b. Age-18 assessment.
c. Age-21 assessment.
*p < .05.
.37*
.53*
.36*
.56*
.03
.43*
.19*
.17*
.09
.07
.32* .06
.09 .18*
.05
.05
.05
.08
.24*
.17*
0-1
.05
.22
28
.08
.07
0-36
2.09
6.09
0-45
3.90
9.14
0-1
.12
.30
69
Possible range
M
SD
Number of yes responses
1. Physical abusea
2. Self-reported violent delinquencyb
3. Self-reported nonviolent
delinquencyb
4. Violent offenses (court records)b
5. Nonviolent offenses (court records)b
6. Status offenses (court records)b
7. Any offenses (court records)b
8. Self-reported arrestsc
9. Any arrests (court records
or self-report)c
10. Externalizing problemsc
11. Perpetrator romantic relationship
violencec
12. Victim romantic relationship
violencec
13. Graduated from high schoolc
14. Fired in past yearc
15. Drug usec
16. Teen parentc
17. Pregnant or impregnated someone
in past yearc
18. Internalizing problemsc
Variable
.07
.20*
.10
.06
.24*
.07
.19*
.11*
.12
.38*
.84*
.08*
.64*
0-1
.10
.31
60
.07
.23*
.12*
.13*
.19*
.05
.03
.10*
.11
.66*
.13*
.51*
0-1
.07
.25
39
.05
.22*
.14*
.08
.24*
.05
.14*
.11*
.09
.09
.77*
0-1
.14
.35
82
.14*
.20*
.14*
.23*
.10*
.09*
.22*
.31*
.22*
.68*
0-1
.12
.33
56
.11*
.23*
.14*
.20*
.20*
.07
.21*
.25*
.17*
0-1
.22
.41
126
.60*
.12*
.13*
.41*
.05
.01
.24*
.42*
0-56
7.44
6.13
10
.33*
.11
.01
.13*
.04
.03
.56*
0-6
.12
.46
11
.20*
.15*
.06
.18*
.07
.04
0-6
.17
.61
12
.07
.13*
.07
.38*
.15*
0-1
.83
.38
370
13
.03
.08
.07
.00
0-1
.08
.27
37
14
.18*
.05
.03
0-10
.78
1.37
15
17
.02 .03
.17*
0-1 0-1
.13 .08
.33 .27
62
36
16
0-48
9.15
7.34
18
240
Adjusted Means
Abused
Not Abused
Abused
SD
SD
SD
SD
4.16
2.26
0.04
0.09
0.06
0.13
0.11
0.20
9.61
6.43
0.20
0.29
0.23
0.34
0.31
0.40
1.96
0.85
0.10
0.19
0.16
0.23
0.25
0.35
3.67
1.81
0.30
0.39
0.37
0.43
0.44
0.48
0.92
0.54
6.28*
14.99***
12.72***
9.85**
16.32***
14.12***
3.88
2.17
0.04
0.09
0.05
0.13
0.10
0.20
9.22
6.13
0.20
0.29
0.23
0.34
0.30
0.40
1.93
0.82
0.12
0.22
0.19
0.28
0.21
0.34
3.77
1.87
0.33
0.42
0.40
0.45
0.42
0.48
1.61
0.06
4.30*
13.71***
7.67**
6.20*
6.18*
6.34*
7.34
0.10
6.06
0.36
8.23
0.28
6.60
0.91
3.87*
4.60*
7.34
0.11
6.11
0.38
7.93
0.05
6.53
0.12
0.43
0.73
0.16
0.56
0.29
0.94
0.00
0.15
0.52
0.05
0.12
3.47
0.86
0.07
0.80
0.11
0.07
0.35
0.25
1.41
0.32
0.25
0.62
0.21
0.60
0.23
0.17
0.49
0.41
0.96
0.43
0.38
0.87
0.07
0.78
0.11
0.06
0.34
0.25
1.38
0.31
0.24
0.62
0.26
0.60
0.24
0.16
0.49
0.45
0.99
0.43
0.37
9.10
7.24
9.49
8.14
9.17
7.09
8.86
8.18
23.82***
14.31***
0.00
9.37**
10.57**
0.44
15.20***
9.55**
0.04
4.15*
11.13**
0.52
NOTE: Not abused n = 505; abused n = 69. Rates of missing data vary depending on the outcome and year of assessment. Adjusted means
control for socioeconomic status, single-parent status, family stress, maternal social support, child exposure to violence, child temperament, and child health.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
not graduating from high school, being a teen parent, and being pregnant or impregnating someone
in the past year without being married. The pattern
was similar in seven of the nine nonsignificant abuseby-race interactions. The significant abuse-by-gender
interactions are also shown in Table 3. Of the 17
abuse-by-gender interactions tested, there were two
significant interactions: Gender qualified the main
effect of physical abuse on being fired and being a
teen parent. Although physical abuse in the first 5
years of life was related to a higher likelihood of
being fired in the past year and of being a teen parent for both males and females, the risk was disproportionately higher for females who had been abused.
Given these significant interactions, we separately
conducted post hoc ANCOVAs by race or by gender
for the outcome variables that showed significant
interactions. As seen in Table 3, the effects were significant for African American youth but were not significant for European American youth. Compared
to African American youth who had not been physically abused, African American youth who had been
physically abused were twice as likely to have court
CHILD MALTREATMENT / AUGUST 2007
241
Not Abused
Adjusted M
SD
Adjusted M
SD
0.02
0.38
0.15
0.50
0.01
0.19
0.12
0.40
0.07
0.63
0.26
0.50
0.07
0.22
0.25
0.42
0.14
0.63
0.35
0.50
0.10
0.26
0.31
0.44
0.15
0.44
0.36
0.53
0.10
0.09
0.30
0.29
0.21
0.69
0.42
0.48
0.18
0.30
0.38
0.46
0.75
0.20
0.44
0.42
0.88
0.77
0.32
0.43
0.12
0.58
0.33
0.52
0.08
0.24
0.28
0.43
0.06
0.50
0.24
0.53
0.05
0.17
0.21
0.38
0.30
0.23
0.47
0.43
0.06
0.07
0.25
0.26
0.48
0.04
0.51
0.20
0.16
0.05
0.37
0.22
F
6.54*
0.00
0.87
18.50***
0.01
7.24**
8.28**
0.03
3.97*
5.41*
0.02
6.13*
8.65**
0.02
5.31*
9.53*
1.24
8.77**
3.85*
0.11
2.37
12.24**
0.10
9.30**
6.37*
17.23***
0.16
9.37**
4.26*
0.10
NOTE: Not abused n = 505 (203 European American females, 43 African American females, 223 European American males, 36 African
American males); abused n = 69 (24 European American females, 7 African American females, 27 European American males, 11 African
American males). Rates of missing data vary depending on the outcome and year of assessment. Adjusted means control for socioeconomic status, single-parent status, family stress, maternal social support, child exposure to violence, child temperament, and child health.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
242
243
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