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Child Maltreatment Analysis

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Child Maltreatment Analysis
Child Maltreatment and the Effects it has Middle Adulthood

Valentina Nikulina and Cathy Spatz Widon authored Child Maltreatment and Executive Functioning in Middle Adulthood: A Prospective Examination. In this journal article Nikulina and Widom search for answers to determine if childhood maltreatment predicts components of executive functioning and nonverbal reasoning ability in middle adulthood and whether PTSD moderates this relationship. Over a million children are maltreated everyday in America. Maltreatment is defined as the physical, sexual or emotional maltreatment or neglect of a child or children. Although researchers have hypothesized that childhood maltreatment has a detrimental …show more content…
Does a history of PTSD moderate or mediate the relation between child abuse/ neglect and executive functioning and nonverbal reasoning deficits in middle adulthood (Nikulina, et.al,2013).

Executive functions and nonverbal reasoning are directly affiliated with planning, inhibition, organization, and monitoring of complex behavior; memory, cognitive flexibility, sustained attention, nonverbal problem solving and rational reasoning. The prefrontal cortex controls these two functions and is though to be damaged by childhood maltreatment. PTSD has been linked to prenatal cortex by theory and research. There are mixed findings between the role of childhood maltreatment and PTSD.

The children used in this study had substantiated cases of childhood maltreatment. The initial sample of maltreated children was 908. The 908 maltreated children were carefully matched with non abused children with similar age, sex, race/ethnicity and social class. The abused …show more content…
Childhood maltreatment and neglect specifically have profound affects on the long-term functioning of executive functioning and nonverbal reasoning. There is certainly a need to prevent child maltreatment in order to avoid these hindering long term affects.
Critique:
Within the sample different ages, sexes, races/ethnicity, and social classes were represented. Although the sample size was large it only covered the midwesten metropolitan area. A bigger more diverse geographical sample would have rendered more accurate results for a national consensus.
For the time period (1967-1971) and the resources available at the time this study is very impressive.

The instrument utilized was the Trail Making Type A and B, The Matrix reasoning test and PTSD interviews. The tests are standardized assessments. The interviewers received a week of study –specific training. To
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