Intergenerational Continuity in Child Maltreatment: Mediating Mechanisms and Implications for Prevention

Abstract

In the interest of improving child maltreatment prevention, this prospective, longitudinal, community-based study of 499 mothers and their infants examined (a) direct associations between mothers' experiences of childhood maltreatment and their offspring's maltreatment, and (b) mothers' mental health problems, social isolation, and social information processing patterns (hostile attributions and aggressive response biases) as mediators of these associations. Mothers' childhood physical abuse -but not neglect -directly predicted offspring victimization. This association was mediated by mothers' social isolation and aggressive response biases. Findings are discussed in terms of specific implications for child maltreatment prevention.Child maltreatment is a serious public health problem, most urgently for infants and toddlers. In the United States in 2006, 905,000 children, more than 12 of every 1,000 (1.2%) were identified as victims of abuse or neglect (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [US DHHS], 2008). Victimization rates among children between birth and age 1 were twice as high (2.4%). Female parents (typically biological mothers), acting alone or with another, perpetrated 64% of child abuse and neglect cases (US DHHS, 2008). The most common pattern of maltreatment (40% of cases) was a child victimized by a female parent acting alone.Child maltreatment not only results in acute physical injuries but also predicts later substance use problems (Kunitz et al., 1998), high-risk sexual behaviors (McCauley et al., 1997;Parillo et al., 2001), aggression and violent crime (Lansford et al., 2007), mental health problems (Cohen, Brown, & Smailes, 2001; Edwards, Holden, Felitti, & Anda, 2003;Widom, DuMont, & Czaja, 2007), and adult relationship problems, including intimate partner violence (Kunitz et al., 1998;Widom, Czaja, & Dutton, 2008). A history of child abuse has been identified as the strongest life-experience predictor of multi-problem behavior in adolescence (Lansford et al., 2002). The earlier in a child's life that maltreatment occurs, the more likely it is to recur, and the greater the physical, psychological, and social costs (Cicchetti & Toth, 1995;Keiley, Howe, Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 2001; US DHHS, 2008).Rigorous developmental science can be brought to bear on the pernicious problem of child maltreatment by examining developmental processes that may underlie the associations between well-documented risk factors and child victimization. In the interest of identifying proximal intervention targets for child maltreatment prevention, this prospective longitudinal study examines (a) mothers' history of childhood maltreatment (physical abuse or neglect) as a risk factor for their child's maltreatment during infancy and toddlerhood, Intergenerational Continuity in the Experience of Child MaltreatmentChild maltreatment is widely viewed as multiply determined. At the same time, scholars and practitioners repeatedly discuss a parent's history of childhood maltreatment as a key risk factor for th...

Observed sensitivity during family interactions and cumulative risk: A study of multiple dyads per family.

“…Furthermore, results are consistent with a multitude of single-dyad research, where variability in sensitivity is explained by a variety of maternal characteristics and experiences including exposure to childhood adversity (Berlin, Appleyard, & Dodge, 2011), poor psychological functioning (Elgar, McGrath, Waschbusch, Stewart, & Curtis, 2004), personality (Clark, Kochanska, & Ready, 2000), and genetic polymorphisms (Bisceglia et al, 2012).…”

Intergenerational Continuity of Child Abuse Among Adolescent Mothers

“…The current investigation addresses a significant gap in the literature by evaluating a moderating process in the relation between risk and/or protective factors and the intergenerational continuity of child abuse (Berlin et al, 2011). Higher authoritarian parenting attitudes significantly predicted membership in the no-continuity group among African American families, but not among Caucasian American, demographically matched families.…”

“…Of note is the distinction between intergenerational continuity of abuse and the intergenerational transmission of abuse; continuity refers to situations where abused parents have an abused child in the household without distinguishing whether the perpetrator is the parent or not, whereas transmission refers to a subset of these families in which parents who were victims of childhood abuse can be identified as subsequent perpetrators of abuse toward their own children (Berlin, Appleyard, & Dodge, 2011). The focus of this investigation is intergenerational continuity of childhood abuse.…”

The Effects of Parental Divorce on the Intergenerational Transmission of Crime

“…Evidence for transmission of violence has also been found for specific forms of violence, such as child maltreatment [34,35] and intimate partner violence [36]. Convictions for violent crime are also transmitted from father to son [26,37] and between other family members [38].…”