| Abstract: | The definition and classification of maltreatment and the assessment of its effects have serious implications for child protection and intervention. The present study seeks to clarify a number of interrelated issues involved in the assessment of the effects of child maltreatment.The study tested, within the context of an ecological model, the relative utility of two sources of information about child abuse, Child Protective Services records and parent interviews, for their ability to account for child functioning. The model is based on an ecological approach that places risk factors along a proximal/distal continuum with respect to the expected impact on the child. Risk for poor child functioning was found to increase as increasingly distal as well as proximal risk factors were included. A sample of 100 physically abused schoolchildren, ages 9–11, and their families was obtained from a pool of consecutive entries onto the New York State Register for Child Abuse. Information about child physical abuse and family functioning was obtained from NYS Child Protective Services records and a structured parent interview. Child functioning was measured by the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1991a) and the Teacher Rating Form (Achenbach, 1991b). The findings suggest that for the purpose of evaluating risk factors for poor outcome in physically abused children, with the ultimate aim of improving protection and intervention, it is critical to gather information systematically from multiple sources about the abuse and the family context in which it occurs because both are predictive of child functioning, and different information about both is contributed by the different sources. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. |
