Tuppett M. Yates

The Long-Term Consequences of Maltreatment in the Early Years: A Developmental Pathway Model to Antisocial Behavior

The developmental pathways linking maltreatment in early childhood and antisocial behavior in adolescence were examined using data from a longitudinal study of high-risk children and their families. Two developmental process variables, emotional/self-regulation (dysregulation) and establishing a close emotional relationship between the child and primary caregiver (alienation), were included in the model in an effort to better understand the pathway from maltreatment to antisocial behavior. The results indicated that alienation and, to a much lesser extent, dysregulation helped explain the relation between early maltreatment and later antisocial behavior. The model including the developmental process variables was a better representation of the data than the model considering only the direct effect between early maltreatment and later antisocial behavior. Physical abuse in early childhood, not emotional neglect, led to alienation in preschool, which then predicted early onset externalizing problems in the elementary school years, ultimately resulting in antisocial behavior in adolescence. One of the implications of these findings for preventing adolescent antisocial behavior is to intervene at an early age with a relationship-based program.

A prospective study of child maltreatment and self-injurious behavior in a community sample

In conjunction with prospective ratings of child maltreatment (i.e., sexual abuse, physical abuse, and physical neglect) and measures of dissociation and somatization, this study examined prospective pathways between child maltreatment and nonsuicidal, direct self-injurious behavior (SIB; e.g., cutting, burning, self-hitting). Ongoing participants in the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (N = 164; 83 males, 81 females) completed a semistructured interview about SIB when they were 26 years old. SIB emerged as a heterogeneous and prominent phenomenon in this low-income, mixed-gender, community sample. Child sexual abuse predicted recurrent injuring (i.e., three or more events; n = 13), whereas child physical abuse appeared more salient for intermittent injuring (i.e., one to two events; n = 13). Moreover, these relations appeared largely independent of risk factors that have been associated with child maltreatment and/or SIB, including child cognitive ability, socioeconomic status, maternal life stress, familial disruption, and childhood exposure to partner violence. Dissociation and somatization were related to SIB and, to a lesser degree, child maltreatment. However, only dissociation emerged as a significant mediator of the observed relation between child sexual abuse and recurrent SIB. The findings are discussed within a developmental psychopathology framework in which SIB is viewed as a compensatory regulatory strategy in posttraumatic adaptation.

The relation of emotional maltreatment to early adolescent competence: Developmental processes in a prospective study

OBJECTIVES This investigation examined developmental pathways between childhood emotional maltreatment and adaptational outcomes in early adolescence. This study utilized a developmental psychopathology perspective in adopting a multidimensional approach to the assessment of different forms of emotional maltreatment and later adjustment outcomes. Specifically, emotional abuse (i.e., verbal criticism, hostility) and emotional neglect (i.e., psychological unavailability) were compared using a process-level analytic approach to examine if and how different forms of emotional maltreatment would contribute to adolescent adjustment via aggression and social withdrawal in middle childhood. METHODS The current study sample is drawn from a longitudinal, prospective study of a high-risk community sample (N=196), incorporating a multi-method and multi-informant design. Multiple mediator models were tested via bootstrapping regression techniques. RESULTS Bivariate correlations revealed that both emotional neglect and emotional abuse were associated with increased aggression and social withdrawal in middle childhood, and lower ratings of socioemotional competence in early adolescence. However, the mediational model, which controlled for child gender and concurrent physical and sexual maltreatment, was only significant for the contribution of emotional abuse to lower adolescent competence via social withdrawal in middle childhood. Post hoc analyses revealed that this association was only significant for boys. CONCLUSIONS While social withdrawal in middle childhood significantly explained the observed relation between emotional abuse and decreased competence in adolescence, this process did not emerge as salient in understanding the relation between emotional neglect and adolescent adaptation. Furthermore, these developmental processes appeared to vary by gender. The results are in need of replication and extension to other outcome domains, but represent an important contribution to the empirical study of specific forms of emotional maltreatment. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS Emotional maltreatment is generally overlooked and unrecognized as compared to physical or sexual forms of maltreatment. This study adds to the accumulating empirical evidence that the effects of emotional maltreatment are disabling, enduring, and should be carefully assessed by clinicians. Furthermore, this assessment should specify the particular form of emotional maltreatment that has occurred, as the results of the study indicate that developmental processes and adjustment outcomes may vary according the type of emotional maltreatment (i.e., emotional abuse, emotional neglect) that is experienced. Finally, clinicians must recognize that a single maltreatment type may vary in its impact on subsequent adjustment, as significant gender differences emerged in the current study that point to the role of individual differences that warrant further investigation.

Classes and Consequences of Multiple Maltreatment: A Person-Centered Analysis

While the overwhelming majority of research on the consequences of childhood maltreatment reports differential outcomes of specific maltreatment subtypes (e.g., physical abuse vs. emotional abuse) as though they are independent, maltreatment experiences often occur in combination. The present study evaluated multiple maltreatment experiences in a sample of 2,637 undergraduate students who reported on childhood maltreatment and current adjustment. The authors used latent class analysis to examine predominant patterns of multiple maltreatment experiences and investigated indices of psychosocial adjustment associated with those patterns. Results suggested that specific constellations of multiple maltreatment have qualitatively different associations with adjustment. Emotional abuse, alone or in combination with other maltreatment types, was especially salient for psychopathology (e.g., anxiety, depression), while a combination of physical and emotional abuse was most strongly associated with conduct-related problems (e.g., substance use, risky sexual behavior). These findings have both practical and empirical significance for understanding and classifying experiences of maltreatment.

A Developmental Process Analysis of the Contribution of Childhood Emotional Abuse to Relationship Violence

Despite indications that emotional abuse might be the core factor underlying the negative effects of child maltreatment, it has received little attention, particularly with respect to its impact on interpersonal relationships in adulthood. This study conducted a developmental process analysis of the contribution of childhood emotional abuse to relationship violence in a sample of undergraduates. Results indicated that emotional abuse was a stronger predictor of relationship violence than other maltreatment subtypes. Emotion dysregulation partially mediated this relationship, driven by its behavioral component, impulsivity. Gender and ethnicity effects were examined. Findings point to the need for increased attention to adult outcomes of emotional abuse and increased clinical awareness of emotion regulation as a key developmental mechanism of adaptation in adulthood.

The Developmental Consequences of Child Emotional Abuse

Abstract This article provides an empirical and theoretical foundation to support increased attention to neurodevelopmental processes in understanding the developmental sequelae of child emotional abuse (CEA). After reviewing the socioemotional consequences of CEA, an overview of the mammalian stress response system is provided, the deleterious impact of early psychosocial adversity on the organization and integration of this system is discussed, and the applicability of these findings for considering CEA and its developmental consequences within a multi-level, integrative, developmental psychopathology framework is explained. Building on evidence that CEA is likely to result in significant and enduring alterations in the neurobiology of stress response systems and, by extension, in neurodevelopment more broadly, specific suggestions for future research and practice are offered. This article encourages greater attention to CEA as a salient developmental experience and to neurophysiological processes as a heretofore overlooked source of information about the relation between CEA and adaptation.

Adapting to aging out: Profiles of risk and resilience among emancipated foster youth

This investigation employed latent profile analysis to identify distinct patterns of multiform competence among 164 emancipated foster youth (Mage = 19.67 years, SD = 1.12; 64% female). Fit indices and conceptual interpretation converged on a four-profile solution. A subset of emancipated youth evidenced a maladaptive profile (16.5%; n = 27), which was characterized by low educational competence, low occupational competence, low civic engagement, problematic interpersonal relationships, low self-esteem, and high depressive symptoms. However, the largest group of emancipated youth exhibited a resilient profile in which they were faring reasonably well in all domains despite marked adversity (47%; n = 77). Two additional groups evidenced discordant adjustment patterns wherein they exhibited high levels of psychological competence despite behavioral difficulties (i.e., internally resilient; 30%; n = 49) or significant emotional difficulties despite manifest competence (i.e., externally resilient; 6.5%; n = 11). The obtained profiles were validated against independent measures of behavioral and socioemotional adjustment. Exploratory analyses examined etiological differences across profiles with respect to child welfare variables, such as age at entry into care, placement disruption, reason for placement, and severity of child maltreatment. The findings highlight the need for multidimensional models of risk and resilience and illustrate the importance of heretofore underappreciated heterogeneity in the adaptive outcomes of emancipated foster youth.

The long-term consequences of childhood emotional maltreatment on development: (mal)adaptation in adolescence and young adulthood.

Over the past 40 years, child maltreatment research has become a demanding, distinct and distinguished field of empirical inquiry. A relative latecomer to this area, child emotional maltreatment has lagged behind other forms of maltreatment in research funding, publishing, and practice (Behl, Conyngham, & May, 2003). Although research on child emotional maltreatment has grown steadily since its formalized introduction to the field 20 years ago (Brassard, Germaine, & Hart, 1987; Cicchetti & Nurcombe, 1991; Garrison, 1987), investigations have focused on childhood effects to the relative exclusion of longer-term, prospective studies with their attendant focus on adolescent and older populations. Studies employing child protection, high risk, and clinical samples have been similarly limited, leaving more questions than answers about the unique, developmental impact and process of child emotional maltreatment. As part of the effort to address such questions, researchers gathered at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development in April of 2007 to discuss new data about the relation between childhood emotional maltreatment and a variety of long-term (mal)adaptive outcomes in varied samples. This special section of Child Abuse & Neglect represents an extension and expansion of these early conversations. While the focus is on youth outcomes, we also consider issues central to definition, identification, and intervention. In response to recent appeals for greater attention to emotional maltreatment broadly, and to its long-term consequences specifically (e.g., Wright, 2007), these papers illustrate novel and theoretically grounded approaches to understanding how and why child emotional maltreatment influences (mal)adaptation in adolescence and young adulthood, with a particular eye toward informing practical efforts to decrease emotional maltreatment and/or to mitigate its negative consequences. These papers converge in their emphasis on the need to assess explicitly for emotional maltreatment, both in its own right, and when any other form of maltreatment is queried in research or practice. Yet a vexing issue is how to determine a threshold of emotionally malevolent caregiving – when is bad, bad enough? Emotional maltreatment may appear in many forms – a physically and/or emotionally uninvolved parent; parents who constantly bicker, yell, undermine and fight with each other in front of the child; perfectionistic parents with unreasonably demanding expectations and critical observations. Other forms of emotional maltreatment reflect discrete acts, such as threatening the child where physical injury potential is high (e.g., hanging a child over a balcony, locking a child out of the home in unsafe conditions), or a pattern of repeated destructive actions (e.g., spurning, terrorizing, isolating, ignoring, exploiting, corrupting, Brassard & Donovan, 2006; Hart & Brassard, 1991). Yet the categorization of emotional abuse and neglect in current child welfare policy is based on a critical, though ambiguously operationalized, threshold of emotional harm. For example, child protection protocols may require behaviors to result in “serious emotional harm;” “imminent danger of suffering irreversible emotional damage;” or child “emotional illness” in order to qualify as emotional maltreatment (e.g., Ontario Risk Assessment Model Eligibility Spectrum, 2006). Meanwhile, it is readily accepted that sexual abuse, physical abuse, and failure to provide life’s physical essentials for a child is emotionally (and developmentally) harmful, and warrants efforts to intervene and protect. In these and other policies, key questions arise: (1) should emotional maltreatment be regarded as its own category? and, its corollary, (2) does emotional maltreatment yield unique impairment to children? These questions become even more challenging when we look forward to consider the potential for enduring effects of child emotional maltreatment on adolescent and young adult functioning. Adopting a developmental psychopathology perspective, this section addresses the impact of childhood emotional maltreatment on adolescent and young adult adjustment with respect to both psychopathology (e.g., anxiety, depression, dating violence) and competence (e.g., self-esteem, peer relationship quality). The studies herein employ process-level analyses to identify specific mechanisms by which emotional maltreatment influences later adjustment above and beyond its comorbidity with other forms of malevolent caregiving (e.g., physical or sexual abuse). Working from varying perspectives and in

A Multidimensional View of Continuity in Intergenerational Transmission of Child Maltreatment

While the past several decades of research have established a broad frame for understanding the intergenerational transmission of maltreatment (IGTM), published rates and mechanisms of transmission remain variable. In this chapter, we apply key concepts from the integrative paradigm of developmental psychopathology to inform a new approach to IGTM research that will simultaneously facilitate greater sensitivity and specificity in our understanding of patterns of maltreatment continuity and discontinuity across generations. In particular, we discuss the meaning of heterogeneity in patterns of development over time, as well as in the features of maltreatment. We encourage explicit consideration of specific types of maltreatment, and review extant evidence for IGTM with respect to distinct maltreatment subtypes (i.e., child physical abuse, child sexual abuse, child emotional abuse, child neglect). We highlight the implications of this heightened specificity for clarifying the phenomenology of IGTM and elucidating its etiology. Finally, we present recommendations to refine our terminology, empirical methodology, and clinical practice.

Preschoolers' Emotion Knowledge and the Differential Effects of Harsh Punishment

This study examined the influence of caregiver-reported harsh physical and verbal punishment on childrens behavioral and self-system adjustment. Childrens emotion knowledge was evaluated as a heretofore unrecognized moderator of these relations. We assessed 250 preschool-aged children (50% female; Mage = 49.06 months) from diverse backgrounds (50% Hispanic, 18% African American, 10.4% Caucasian, 21.6% multiracial/other) using various instruments through teacher, caregiver, self, and observer report in the domains of harsh punishment, conduct problems, self-concept, and emotion knowledge. Emotion knowledge moderated the relation between harsh punishment and child adjustment. Harsh physical punishment was associated with conduct problems for children with higher emotion knowledge, especially for boys. Harsh verbal punishment was associated with self-concept deficits among children with higher emotion knowledge, especially for girls. These relations were also specifically applicable to non-Hispanic children. These results highlight the importance of investigating hypothesis-driven interactive effects and the specificity of experience to understand the psychosocial sequelae of parenting practices broadly, and to clarify the mixed evidence in the punishment literature specifically. Clinical implications point to the salience of emotion processes in parent-child disciplinary interventions for understanding the prevalence and pattern of child behavioral adjustment and self-concept, as well as more broadly to the role of individual differences in childrens responses to adversity and subsequent therapeutic needs.