Long-term study complicates understanding of child abuse
Sexual abuse, neglect get reported more if parents were maltreated as kids
By Bruce Bower
Official reports of child abuse may overestimate the tendency of such maltreatment to run in families. Parents who were abused themselves as kids are more likely than nonabused parents to be reported to authorities after having sexually abused or neglected their own children, a new study finds. Yet child protective service agencies should not assume that child abuse and neglect only or mostly occur when parents have histories of maltreatment, researchers conclude in the March 27 Science.
Psychologist Cathy Spatz Widom of City University of New York and colleagues interviewed 649 Midwestern, mostly blue collar or poor participants three times, in their late 20s, late 30s and late 40s. Of that number, 358 suffered documented abuse or neglect as children. Widom’s group also interviewed 697 of the participants’ biological children, all at least 8 years old. Finally, the investigators checked child protective services records for each participant.