Effects of parental maltreatment on developmental psychopathology

1. Effects of parental maltreatment on developmental psychopathology Overview for today • Cicchetti, D., & Toth, S. L. (1995). A developmental psychopathology perspective on child abuse and neglect. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 34, 541-565. • Shipman, K. L., & Seman, J. (2001). Socialization of children’s emotion regulation in mother-child dyads: A developmental psychopathological perspective. Development and Psychopathology, 13, 317-336.

3. Cicchetti& Toth(1995). A developmental psychopathology perspective on child abuse and neglect.  • Dimensions of maltreatment: • Types: (sexual abuse, behavioral abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect) • Severity (slapped or punched leaving bruising in a limited area vs. beatings with hand or object, severe inquiry such as considerable bruising, broken bones, bleeding) • Frequency (chronic vs. acute) • Developmental period • Prevalence of out-of-home placements • Nature of child’s relationship with perpetrator • The diversity of developmental pathways: • depression, conduct disorder, and delinquency ADHD, ODD, PTSD, antisocial personality disorder, substance abuse, suicidal and self-injurious behavior, and dissociation. • Emergence of psychopathology as transactions between the individual and the environment • Transactional approach (developed by Sameroff): environmental forces, caregiving characteristics, and child characteristics influence each other and make reciprocal contributions to developmental outcomes.

4. Cicchetti& Toth(1995). A developmental psychopathology perspective on child abuse and neglect.  Is there any research that study the correlation of physical abused children with sexually abused children ? (if any) - does it make sense that there could be any connection?

8. Cicchetti& Toth(1995). A developmental psychopathology perspective on child abuse and neglect.  When most of the maltreated children have attachment type D, could SST be possibly used as a tool to reveal whether a child has been maltreated?Could there be any other reason why is child's attachment classified as type D than maltreatment and is it even possible that some maltreated children are able to develop secure attachment?

9. Cicchetti& Toth(1995). A developmental psychopathology perspective on child abuse and neglect.  • Although atypical attachment patterns (especially on disorganized pattern) during the first two years of the child’s life remain usually stable, as children grow older, those patterns seem to decrease. • What factors may contribute to the change of the clear (atypical) attachment pattern? How we can differentiate between children with the atypical attachment patterns in their later life? And how is the decrease of the atypical attachment patterns related to the fact that maltreatment is likely to be transmitted across generations? Does it mean that childhood attachment pattern (type D, in this case) activates in certain situations and causing certain behavior, but not in others?

10. Cicchetti& Toth(1995). A developmental psychopathology perspective on child abuse and neglect.  Is it useful for abused or maltreated children to be in contact with other children that have similar problems so they don’t have the feeling that they are the only one and they can understand each other. Or is it better that theydon’t have any contact with similar cases as them because it can make them feeling more terrible to see other people having the same problem?

11. Cicchetti& Toth(1995). A developmental psychopathology perspective on child abuse and neglect.  • Two groups: peer group vs. control group • Peer group: • Weekly session • A therapist introduced a new skill, and then students have a discussion. • Emphasizing peer-reinforcement • Control group: no treatment or free access to videotapes and books

12. Cicchetti& Toth(1995). A developmental psychopathology perspective on child abuse and neglect. 

13. Cicchetti& Toth(1995). A developmental psychopathology perspective on child abuse and neglect.  I can imagine it has to be difficult for the therapist to end the therapy with the maltreated child. It is stated in Cicchetti and Toth (1995) that the therapist should provide the child concrete reasons why the child will nolonger see the therapist. Are there any good explanation that we can provide so that the child won´t feel rejected and not good enough for the therapist?

14. Shipman & Seman(2001). Socialization of children’s emotion regulation in mother-child dyads: A developmental psychopathological perspective. Sample: • 25 physically maltreating mother-child dyads • (recruited from Children’s Protective Services) • 25 nonmaltreatingmother–child dyads • (a control group matched on race, SES, child gender, and child age) Measures: • Children and their mothers were interviewed individually about • Management of emotional expression • Inhibition, deregulated-expression, endorsement of coping emotion regulation (I try) • Strategies for coping with emotional arousal • Emotional display to mother, expectations of maternal behavioral support, expectations of maternal emotional support, and effective coping strategies • Mothers’ understanding of emotional displays

15. Shipman & Seman(2001). Socialization of children’s emotion regulation in mother-child dyads: A developmental psychopathological perspective. Results: • Compared to controls, maltreated children expected less maternal support in response to their emotional displays, reported being less likely to display emotions to their mothers, and generated fewer effective coping strategies for anger. • Maltreating mothers indicated less understanding of children’s emotional displaysand fewer effective strategies for helping children to cope with emotionally arousing situations than nonmaltreatingmothers. • Further, findings indicated that maternal socialization practices (e.g., providing support in response to children’s emotional display, generating effective coping strategies for their child) mediate the relation between child maltreatment and children’s regulation of emotional expression and emotional arousal.

16. Shipman & Seman(2001). Socialization of children’s emotion regulation in mother-child dyads: A developmental psychopathological perspective. Results: • Maternal Socialization Practices • providing support in response to children’s emotional display • generating effective coping strategies for their child Maternal Maltreatment (vs. nonmaltreatment) Maternal Socialization Practices Child Emotion Regulation

17. Shipman & Seman(2001). Socialization of children’s emotion regulation in mother-child dyads: A developmental psychopathological perspective. Are the only criteria of the Abuse Dimensions Inventory these mentioned in the article of Shipman and Zeman (2001), i.e. visible bruises? In my opinion, these objective criteria are not as important as the child's subjective feeling about it because each child may experience the same kind of maltreatment differently (due to different pain threshold, resilience, etc.). So I wonder if there is any child-report scale of maltreatment and if it would not be better to use it together with the ADI to assess the severity of maltreatment from the child's point of view.

18. Shipman & Seman(2001). Socialization of children’s emotion regulation in mother-child dyads: A developmental psychopathological perspective. “These findings suggest that children’s emotion regulation strategies are influenced by their relationship with their social environment (e.g., physically maltreating, nonmaltreating) and that the experience of a physically maltreating relationship may interfere with children’s emotional development.”If a child is a victim of maltreating all his childhood, when he became himself an adult and a parent what happened then? He will also maltreat his children because he thinks it is the way to do it. Or in opposite he won’t hit his child because he knows how un-useful and painful it is?

19. Shipman & Seman(2001). Socialization of children’s emotion regulation in mother-child dyads: A developmental psychopathological perspective. “Taken together, these findings suggest that children’s emotion regulaotion skills are influenced by their relationship with their social environment” (Shipman, Zeman, 2001)The authors emphasize that child emotional regulation is influenced by social environment and their paper is focused on socialization, however, they focused just on maternal care.  I know the term socialization in another context. What is socialization in their point of view? Isn´t it important to focus also on other family members?

20. Shipman & Seman(2001). Socialization of children’s emotion regulation in mother-child dyads: A developmental psychopathological perspective. “In general, maltreated children indicated more negative expectations regarding the interpersonal outcome of emotional displays within the mother–child relationship and reported a tendency to inhibit the expression of negative emotions. Maltreated children also demonstrated more emotion dysregulationthan their nonmaltreated peers as well as fewer effective strategies for coping with emotionally arousing situations.“ I am wondering if it is really in general. Could be the result same when the maltreating figure is father or another caregiver? Is child so intensely affected by maltreatment just within mother-child dyad?

21. Shipman & Seman(2001). Socialization of children’s emotion regulation in mother-child dyads: A developmental psychopathological perspective. Authors talk about the children´s emotional regulation being based on the mother-child dyads, and conclude that it is based on the social environment of children concerning non/maltreating. Only mothers participated in the study. I wonder what role do fathers and the rest of family play in this system. Maybe non/maltreating of the mother has some influence on the child, but what iffather treats the child in the opposite way than mother - may for example fathers support and kind treating of the child improve negative effect of mother´s maltreating? Or is the mother-child dyad so strong that it has themajor impact in any circumstances?

22. Shipman & Seman(2001). Socialization of children’s emotion regulation in mother-child dyads: A developmental psychopathological perspective. Study which Shipman writes about worked with three emotions of a child - happiness, sadness and anger. But haven’t fear been proven to be the most powerful human emotion (basic evolutionary concept)? Then my question is how would children deal with fear in maltreating and nonmaltreating families. 

23. Shipman & Seman(2001). Socialization of children’s emotion regulation in mother-child dyads: A developmental psychopathological perspective. I was wondering about the development of the maltreated children that were taking part in the study. As it was mentioned, almost half of them were taken away from their parents. Was there a follow up on their development? To be morespecific could this dysfunctional development be changed by a more supporting environment in a new home?

25. Homework • Read two articles • Smetana, J. G. (1999) The Role of Parents in Moral Development: A Social Domain Analysis. Journal of Moral Education, 28, 311–321. • Wray-Lake, L., & Flanagan, C. A. (2012). Parenting practices and the development of adolescents’ social trust. Journal of Adolescence, 35, 549-560. • Email me your thought question(s) by Tuesday midnight.