Causes and Effects of Child Abuse - Child Neglect

When most people think of child maltreatment, they think of abuse and not neglect. Furthermore, research literature and conferences dealing with child maltreatment have generally overlooked child neglect. The congressional hearings that took place before the passage of the landmark Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974 (CAPTA; Public Law 93-247) focused almost entirely on examples of physical abuse. Barely three pages of the hundreds recorded pertained to child neglect.

Nonetheless, every year the federal government reports a very high incidence of child neglect. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Child Maltreatment 2002, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children's Bureau, Washington, DC, 2004), in 2002 more than three times as many children were victims of neglect as of physical abuse (7.5 versus 2.3 children per one thousand child population). In addition, 37.6% of the children who died of child maltreatment died of neglect alone. (See Figure 4.2 and Figure 4.6 in Chapter 4.) It is important to note that these numbers pertain only to children reported to child protective services (CPS) whose cases had been substantiated. Experts believe these numbers are underreported.

Child Neglect—A Major Social Problem

Neglect is an act of omission, or the absence of action. While the consequences of child neglect can be devastating, it leaves no visible marks. Moreover, it usually involves infants and very young children who cannot speak for themselves.

James M. Gaudin Jr., in "Child Neglect: Short-Term and Long-Term Outcomes" (Neglected Children: Research, Practice, and Policy, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 1999), reported that, compared with nonmaltreated and abused children, neglected children have the worst delays in language comprehension and expression. Psychologically neglected children also score lowest in IQ (Intelligence Quotient) tests.

Emotional neglect, in its most serious form, can result in the "non-organic failure to thrive syndrome," a condition in which a child fails to develop physically or even to survive. According to Gaudin, studies have found that, even with aggressive intervention, the neglected child continues to deteriorate. The cooperation of the neglectful parents, which is crucial to the intervention, usually declines as the child's condition worsens. This shows that it is sometimes not that easy to change the parental attributes that have contributed to the neglect in the first place.

Child Neglect around the World

In a paper presented at the Ninth ISPCAN (International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect) European Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect, Warsaw, Poland, August 31, 2003, Murray A. Straus and Sarah A. Savage reported on experiences of child neglect among university students in seventeen countries (Neglectful Behavior by Parents in the Life History of University Students in Seventeen Countries and its Relation to Violence against Dating Partners). A total of 6,900 students from thirty-three universities were recruited to answer questions pertaining to their experience of childhood neglect. The participants, attending classes in psychology and sociology, were mostly female (69%). The study population ranged in age from eighteen to forty years. The students were also questioned regarding violence in their relationship with a dating partner to test the theory that childhood neglect is a risk factor for violence against a dating partner as an adult.

The parental neglectful behaviors included not keeping the child clean, not providing enough clothes for keeping warm, not making sure the child attended school, not caring if the child got into trouble in school, not helping with homework, not helping the child do his best, not providing comfort when the child was upset, and not helping when the child had problems. The authors pointed out, "One of the most ambiguous aspects of defining and measuring neglect concerns how pervasive the neglectful behavior must be for a parent to be classified as neglectful." For purposes of the study, three or more neglectful behaviors constituted having experienced childhood neglect.

The prevalence of childhood neglect ranged from 3.2% in New Hampshire, United States, to 10% in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 19.4% in Singapore, and 36.4% in Pusan, Korea. Straus and Savage pointed out that, although the neglectful behaviors represented in their study may seem "relatively minor," they are associated with physical violence toward a dating partner in adulthood. The proportion of childhood neglect victims who reported assaulting their dating partners ranged from 15% to 45%. Those reporting severe assault of dating partners ranged from 4% to 22%, with up to 13% indicating they inflicted severe injuries. The authors added that neglected children, whose parents do not respond to their emotional needs and fail to provide consistent discipline, will not learn to use nonaggressive means to attain their goals.

Child Neglect and Fathers' Involvement in the Child's Life

One area of interest in the subject of child maltreatment involves the link between father involvement and child neglect. Researchers examined this link in the first study of its kind (Howard Dubowitz, Maureen M. Black, Mia A. Kerr, Raymond H. Starr, and Donna Harrington, "Fathers and Child Neglect," Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, vol. 154, no. 2, February 2000). The participants included 244 low-income, inner-city families who were involved in a long-term study of child health and development in families at risk for child maltreatment. The children were under two years old when the study began, and this particular portion of the study was conducted when the children were five years old. A total of 176 children (72%) had a father or father figure.

The study found an overall range of 11% to 30% of child neglect in the households. The nature of father involvement, however, not the absence of the father, was associated with neglect. The researchers found that less child neglect was associated with the following: a longer duration of father involvement in the child's life, the positive feelings the father had about his parenting skills, the father's greater involvement with household chores, and the father's less involvement with child care. Interestingly, the father's greater involvement with child care resulted in more child neglect. Dubowitz et al. explained that other studies have shown that fathers tended to be more involved in child care when the mothers were unavailable.