ABSTRACT
The serious mistreatment of children by their parents and guardians arouses public indignation, motivates professional service providers, and frustrates researchers—perhaps more than any other single public issue. All of the many causes and contributing factors involved in child maltreatment combine to produce psychosocially impoverished families and physically damaged children. Families involved in child maltreatment tend to exhibit a pattern of day-to-day interaction characterized by low level of social exchange, low responsiveness to positive behavior, and high responsiveness to negative behavior. Many studies report that handicapped children account for more than their proportionate share of the total number of abused and neglected children and youth, while others do not. Some report high levels of handicap among maltreated children. Handicapped children and youth are at special risk for institutional maltreatment in the three forms that have been identified by investigators: institutional child abuse, institutional child neglect, and wrongful abrogation of rights.
