PTSD Linked to Family Violence
Here is another study adding to the literature documenting the correlation between family violence and PTSD. The study has its limits, but is in line with other recent research.
Children and Domestic Violence
The latest of the Journal of Interpersonal Violence has a fascinating study about the effect of domestic violence on children. It included a small sample, and needs to be replicated, but it is the first major study to look at the effect of the relationship between a child who witnesses domestic violence and the perpetrator. It found no significant difference in regard to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but found that children with multiple father figures showed significantly more troublesome behaviors.
Exposure to Domestic Violence as Child Abuse?
The new issue of Child Maltreatment has a provocative article arguing for treating exposure to domestic violence as a form of child abuse. This argument is gaining credibility in the mental health circles, in light of so many studies showing how children who only witness domestic violence exhibit many of the same symptoms as children who are direct victims.
The article is worth purchasing simply for the list of research studies showing the effects of witnessing domestic violence. Any attorney or expert working on cases involving alleged or proven abuse should be familiar with that research. As I noted in my post about a study released last fall, competent experts must be able to rule out domestic violence as an alternate cause of symptoms and/or damages in litigation.
Abuse Linked to Psychosis
A MedWire News article tells of a study published recently in the British Journal of Psychiatry testing possible links between childhood abuse and psychotic episodes in early adolescence. It comes as no surprise that the study found a strong link between childhood physical abuse and later psychosis. What I found interesting is that the study also found a stronger correlations with childhood bullying and exposure to domestic violence than with sexual abuse.
The importance of this study for youth-serving organizations is that bullying can be every bit as damaging as the forms of abuse that we traditionally watch for and try to prevent.
For lawyers, the takeaway is that in litigation involving this sort of claim, we need to investigate domestic violence in the home and bullying at other venues. Our expert witnesses need to address those issues, and either rule them out or account for them as complicating factors when assessing damages.
Spillover Effect from Domestic Violence
Scott Carroll and Mark Hoekstra have published the final report of their ground-breaking and controversial study into how domestic violence affects, not only the children in the home, but those children's classmates. The New York Times highlighted the working paper this past summer, and it has reverberated ever since around the Internet and among social services professionals.
The study concluded that children from families filing domestic violence claims "significantly decrease their peers' reading and math test scores and significantly increase the misbehavior of others in the classroom." Thus, "any intervention that reduces family conflict may well have larger positive effects than previously thought."
This study has profound implications not only for schools, but for public policy. I generally dislike calls for public funding of this or that pet project, but child abuse prevention is one area that needs much more money, both public and private. If the implications of domestic violence are as profound as this study indicates, then proven programs that reduce that violence are a wise, even necessary, investment.
Hat tip: Children and the Law Blog
