Child Maltreatment Analysis

Numerous studies have been conducted regarding maltreatment and children development. Maltreatment is a cruel or violent treatment of a person or animal. Children’s development is a process that a child goes through. This involves learning and mastering skills such as; sitting, walking, talking, and tying shoes. From birth to 8 years old is early stage, and 6 to 12 is the middle stage. Each year nearly 700,000 children are confirmed as victims of child maltreatment and child development. First, there may be a direct link from maltreatment to adverse developmental outcomes (De Bellis, 2001). Second, children’s social-emotional and cognitive characteristics may directly influence the likelihood that they will be maltreated (Belsky, 1978). Third, maltreatment and poor developmental outcomes may be jointly codetermined by a similar set of factors or processes (such as poverty, parental functioning, and parenting quality), rather than one affecting the other. Fourth, child maltreatment and child development may be linked through an ongoing feedback loop, wherein suboptimal behaviors, abilities, or
The analysis improves upon prior research in several ways. First, longitudinal data was used from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCW), which has, to date, followed children from birth to age 9. The FFCW consists of a population-based sample of relatively disadvantaged urban families. Second, the associations of interest were examined by two statistical approaches. In a descriptive trajectory analysis, hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to estimate associations of child maltreatment experiences with children’s initial levels of cognitive and social-emotional functioning at age 3, as well as with their developmental trajectories in these areas over the following 6-year