Child Abuse and Neglect by Child Developmental Stages

Abstract

This study aims to reveal the most frequent child maltreatment types in late childhood, early adolescence and late adolescence, and the trends of child maltreatment prevalence by maltreatment types in different developmental stages. It also tries to find subgroups based on the trends of maltreatment prevalence by the types in developmental stages and examine the correlates of the subgroups at child, care-giver and family levels. The sample includes 381 4th-6th grade children and their caregivers who participated in the wave 1, 4, and 7 of Korea Welfare Panel Study. The results indicate that in early adolescence, physical abuse and verbal abuse were the most frequent maltreatment types. Neglect was the most frequent type of maltreatment in late childhood which decreased as children go through adolescence, but only to a minor extent. The findings imply that interventions are needed for preventing physical and verbal abuse in early adolescence. Latent class analysis found 3 groups based on the trend in child maltreatment prevalence-low occurrence, increase, and decrease. The three groups showed significant differences in the rate of single parent family, the degree of family conflict, and spouse violence. We discussed future research directions.