Few controlled studies exist that examine specific hypotheses about abusive families, especially with regard to direct behavioral observation. Despite two decades of research on child abuse, surprisingly little is known about the specific behavioral excesses and deficits in the parenting skills of abusive parents. In this study, 11 physically abusive mother-child pairs were compared with 12 nonabusive matched controls in a laboratory playroom situation. Parenting skills, as well as interaction patterns, were assessed using three different tasks designed to create varying levels of parental stress and child frustration. One task, known as the Child's Game, consisted of the mother playing with her child in a free play situation where the child was given the instructions to select the toy or game. On the second task, the Parent's Game, mothers were told to select the activity and motivate their children to play along with them. The last task, the Bean Game, required mothers to induce their children to put beans into a decorated jar for a relatively long period of time. Mother-child interactions were observed and coded, providing frequency (rate per minute) and proportion (percentage of each behavior relative to total behavior) data on the occurrence of twelve behaviors hypothesized from the literature to be potentially relevant to parenting ability. Questionnaire measures of knowledge of child behavior, and social desirability were also administered. Discriminant function analyses of the data revealed that 10 of 11 abusive mothers and 10 of 12 control mothers could correctly identified, representing an 87% classification rate. The predominant difference between the two groups was in overall rate of activity. Abusive mothers were seen to engage in significantly less behavior than control mothers; behavior rates were essentially similar for both groups of children. One individual behaviors, questions and approval statements were the only two categories that significantly differed, with abusive mothers less likely to engage in either one. However, when frequency of behavior was corrected for overall rate effects, no differences on individual behaviors were found. Abusive mothers were also observed to use less contingent praise while abused children were found to comply to commands less often. Speculation as to which behavioral patterns mediate abusive episodes, as well as suggestions as to how to better design diagnostic, treatment and prevention programs are offered.

Treatment for child abusers was evaluated using two methods: reviewing three areas of literature and surveying practitioners.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of cry pitch and attributions that crying infants had or had not been abused on the perceptual ratings of maltreating and comparison parents. Twenty maltreating parents and 20 comparison parents rated 12 cries which varied in the pattern of their fundamental frequency on (a) the cry's similarity to their own child's cry, (b) the likelihood that the crying infant would be abused in the future, (c) 5 perceptual items and (d) 7 caregiving response items. Attributions of whether the crying infant was "abused" or "not abused" were varied before each cry sound during the ratings of the perceptual and caregiving response items. Results showed that as the pitch of the cries increased, all parents rated the cries' as less similar to their own infant's cries and the crying infants as more likely to be abused. Maltreating parents, however, rated mixed- and high-pitched cries as more similar to their own child's cries than comparison parents did. Generally, more sympathetic perceptions and responses were given to "abused" infants. However, perceptions of how "arousing" and "distressing" cries sounded were equally high for high-pitched "abused" and "not abused" infants' cries. Maltreating parents were more likely to "ignore" cries, and their ratings of urgency for mixed- and high-pitched cries were lower than comparison parents' ratings. The results are discussed within the framework of how children may contribute to the development of their own abuse or neglect. / M.S.

No description available.

The Child Abuse Committee at the University of Oregon Medical School has assumed a coordinating role as an attempt to provide more effective service to abused children and their families. This research report is a follow up to a 1970 study by Matusak which evaluated the effectiveness of the Committee. The Matusak study seemed to indicate that, because of Committee action resulting in appropriate intervention and services, definite improvement in the situation of the children in the study was seen. This study follows the children from the 1970 study one year later and makes further comparisons of child abuse cases seen at the hospital in 1971. The results of this study fail to support the Matusak findings. A decreased percentage of children in the 1970 study group have maintained their level of improvement one year later and an even lower percentage of the 1971 study group are improved. More children have been left in their own homes than in 1970 but there is little to indicate that the family functions any more adequately than at the time of abuse. The findings seem to reflect a need for reevaluation of management and treatment practices in child abuse cases. It appears that responsibility and authority for coordination should be placed with a single agency and that more specialized services be provided by experienced staff.

No description available.

This study examined an important, yet underreported, area of family service agency assessments, the failure to adequately screen for substance abuse issues. A self-report screening instrument was used to accurately determine substance abuse frequency rates, instead of using the current clinician-directed questioning. New agency clients were randomly assigned to either the experimental group (self-report) or the control group (clinician-directed) to determine if assessment accuracy improved.