Topic 1: Recognizing Child Abuse and Neglect—Definitions and Indicators
Special Issue: Maltreatment of Children with Disabilities
Maltreatment of children with disabilities can and does occur. Pay close attention to the attempts of a child with a disability to communicate that maltreatment has occurred.
Maltreatment of children with disabilities may involve any of the forms of abuse we’ve discussed. Many of the dynamics and indicators are the same. However, this topic deserves special consideration because of some unique features. Though we do not have a clear picture of the extent of maltreatment of children with disabilities, it is generally thought that they are at greater risk than children without disabilities. Some of factors believed to increase their risk are:
- Society’s devaluing children with disabilities
- Failure to acknowledge the sexuality of children with disabilities, coupled with failure to provide developmentally appropriate sexual information
- Denial that abuse can affect children with disabilities to the same extent that it can affect other children
- Inability to accept that caregivers of children with disabilities would abuse them
- Caregiver lack of knowledge of how to care for a child with disabilities and lack of knowledge regarding realistic expectations
- Caregiver lack of social, emotional, and financial resources
- The child’s own internalization of his or her devaluing by society, resulting in shame and reluctance to demand respectful treatment
- The child’s compliance and reluctance to stand up for his or her rights
- The child’s lack of understanding that the abuser’s behavior is wrong
- The child’s inability to defend against the abuser
- The child’s difficulty in communicating the maltreatment, and the abuser’s assumption that the child can’t tell or won’t be believed
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