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Child Abuse

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Child Abuse
Heather Erickson
Research paper
What is child abuse? It is the physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect of a child. Physical abuse is an injury resulting from physical aggression, like burns, bruises, hitting, and shaking. Emotional abuse is intentional actions that makes the child think that they are worthless and/or unloved, like when one is being degraded, given harsh excessive criticism, and ridiculing. Sexual abuse is any sexual act between a child and an adult, like using a child for sexual stimulation, making child porn, or fondling, exposing a child to adult sexuality. Neglect of a child includes failure to provide a child with the basic needs like food, shelter, clothing, and lack of love, safety, attention and nurturing. These are just some examples from each category of abuse. Some abuse to children is not in any of these categories and is classified as “other” such as abandonment. There is no standard approach to identifying child abuse but the process typically begins when the doctor has a feeling that something is not how it should be. Physical, sexual, and neglectful abuse may manifest with physical signs but emotional abuse is difficult to ascertain if the physical components are absent. The doctor should investigate any serious behavioral, cognitive, emotional, or other mental disorders. Specific signs of physical abuse would be soft tissue injuries (contusions, welts, lacerations, abrasions) that form regular patterns, may resemble the shape of the thing uses to inflict the injury such as, a hand, belt buckle electric cord, or the injury could be in various stages of healing. Some physical signs of sexual abuse would include pain, itching, bruises, or bleeding around the genitals, soft tissue tears to the external genitalia, vagina or anus, a sexually transmitted disease, pregnancy, or even behavior that is bizarre for the child. Signs of emotional abuse include withdrawal, an impaired sense of self-worth, failure to thrive,



Bibliography: • CICCHETTI, DANTE, and FRED A. ROGOSCH. "Diverse Patterns of Neuroendocrine Activity in Maltreated Children." Development and psychopathology 13.3 (2001): 677-93. ProQuest Criminal Justice. • Rogosch, Fred A., Melissa N. Dackis, and Dante Cicchetti. "Child Maltreatment and Allostatic Load: Consequences for Physical and Mental Health in Children from Low-Income Families." Development and psychopathology 23.4 (2011): 1107-24. ProQuest Criminal Justice. • Paulk, David. "Child maltreatment: seeing the problem is only step one: why do abuse victims finally disclose what 's happened to them? For one simple reason: someone asked the right questions in an environment that felt safe to the child." JAAPA-Journal of the American Academy of Physicians Assistants May 2008: 46+. General Reference Center GOLD. • Cupoli, J. Michael. "Is it child abuse?" Patient Care 15 Apr. 1988: 28+. General Reference Center GOLD. • Block, Robert W., and Nancy F. Krebs. "Failure to thrive as a manifestation of child neglect." Pediatrics Nov. 2005: 1234+. General Reference Center GOLD. • Kaplan, Sandra J., et al. "Physically Abused Adolescents: Behavior Problems, Functional Impairment, and Comparison of Informants ' Reports." Pediatrics July 1999: 43. General Reference Center GOLD. • Myers, John E. B. "A Short History of Child Protection in America." Family Law Quarterly 42.3 (2008): 449-63. ProQuest. Web.

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