Sandra T. Azar

The Evaluation of Parental Fitness in Termination of Parental Rights Cases: A Functional-Contextual Perspective

This article highlights issues involved in carrying out evaluations for termination of parental rights cases and suggests caution for mental health professionals doing such evaluations. It argues that current models of parenting that come from the child development and child maltreatment fields are too narrow in their focus to act as a foundation for such evaluations and are often based on research with select groups in our society making them open to bias. Similarly, it is argued that traditional assessment measures are limited in their utility for responding to the kinds of relational and basic care questions asked in such evaluations. A functional-contextual model is offered as an alternative with examples of potentially useful measurement strategies. With such a frame as a starting point, the field might progress to providing more useful information to courts. Future research directions to improve this practice arena are discussed.

A cognitive perspective on ethnicity, race, and termination of parental rights

The determination of parental “fitness” in termination of parental rights cases is open to much judicial discretion and, thus, potentially open to bias. Even if judges look to mental health professionals as expert witnesses, misattributions of racial and ethnic cues may still be likely given the poor state of our parenting models and the lack of ethnically and racially relevant normative data and measurement instruments. A social cognitive framework is used to examine the potential for bias in the nature of categories of information that judges and mental health evaluators currently use to make decisions. Recommendations for research and practice that might enhance judicial and mental health evaluator sensitivity to racial and ethnic differences in interaction, family structure, and parenting practices are reviewed.

Models of Child Abuse: A Metatheoretical Analysis

This review assesses progress in the development of causal models of physical child abuse by examining the foundations of current theorizing. The sociopolitical forces and methodological problems that have acted to inhibit model building are highlighted. Existing models are then analyzed using five dimensions important to theory construction: definitions, basic assumptions, levels of analysis, complexity, and forms of antecedent-consequence relationships posited. Progress and conceptual problems in current theorizing are discussed and guidelines for future theory development are outlines.

Child maltreatment and termination of parental rights: Can behavioral research help solomon? *

Termination of parental rights is one of the most important decisions that the legal system undertakes regarding childrens lives. Judges who are called upon to make this decision have increasingly looked to mental health professionals to provide scientific information to aid them in decision making. This paper argues that caution needs to be exercised as professionals approach this task, given the limitations of our current theory and data base. Using cognitive theory, places where personal or societal biases can enter evaluations and testimony are highlighted. Behavioral research, it is argued, has much to offer, given its emphasis on a functional approach to understanding behavior. The ways in which behaviorally oriented assessment can be of use to the legal system around this question are outlined and a research agenda for the field is offered.

The Current Status of Etiological Theories in Intrafamilial Child Maltreatment

Child maltreatment is a major social problem affecting over a million children and their families each year (National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, 1992). Effective treatment development for both perpetrators and victims of this problem rests on the availability of wellarticulated and validated theories of etiology. Such theories allow for empirical documentation of causal factors and ultimately, more precisely targeted interventions. The goal of this chapter is to assess progress in the development of etiological models of intrafamilial child maltreatment. The chapter begins with a historical overview of the forces that operated to slow theory building in early phases of this field and ones that are now more fostering of theory development. We then examine the foundations of current theories about each form of child maltreatment, highlighting the definitions and assumptions that models have adopted and the basic dimensions on which they differ. The chapter ends with a preliminary attempt to integrate current theorizing into a metamodel that would be useful in treatment development.

Integrating Cognitive Strategies into Behavioral Treatment for Abusive Parents and Families with Aggressive Adolescents

In this article we describe cognitive problems that mark two parenting populations, abusive parents and parents of aggressive adolescents. We summarize the research characterizing the nature of these difficulties for both populations in three areas: distorted expectations and attributions, poor cognitive problem-solving capacities and poor anger control and stress management skills. We then describe promising cognitive strategies to address these difficulties. We suggest these strategies will enhance currently available behavioral approaches and address the complex tasks of parenting more fully.

Child age, parent and child gender, and domain differences in parents’ attributions and responses to children’s outcomes

The influence of children’s age, and parents’ and children’s gender on parents’ attributions and emotional and behavioral responses to their children’s successful and unsuccessful social and academic outcomes, was investigated. Seventy-six dual-parent families (mothers and fathers) of fifth (n=28), eighth (n=23), and eleventh grade (n=25) children participated. The results of this study suggest that from fifth grade on, at least, the ways parents explain the causes of and respond to their children’s social behavior and academic outcomes involves a complex interaction of children’s age, children’s gender, parents’ gender, domain, and outcome. Results are discussed in terms of children’s socialization.

Intrafamilial Child Maltreatment

Unlike the other disorders in this volume that are ostensibly nested within individual children, intrafamilial child maltreatment is considered a disorder nested in a relationship. To understand its impact, one must, therefore, examine it using a broader lens than is typical within other childhood disorders. It needs to be considered as occurring in the context of a more general breakdown in caregiver behavior that negatively influences both children’s self system and the ecological context in which they develop. Developmental research has told us that children’s outcomes evolve out of the multiple transactions between their characteristics and both caregiver adequacy and environmental factors that occur over time (Sameroff & Chandler, 1975). Child psychopathology as a result of maltreatment is more likely to occur when some continuous factor or set of factors is present that results in children “organizing” their world in a manner that is maladaptive. Thus, child abuse and neglect can be viewed as heterogeneous events (e.g., in content, severity, chronicity, psychological meaning) whose impact encompass a continuum of responses. This fact makes both assessment and intervention more complex. Cognitive, behavioral, developmental, and family systems perspectives will be used to frame our discussion.