| Very few studies have documented prospectively a relation between child abuse and later juvenile violence. Prospective data from the Pittsburgh Youth Study are used to link different aspects of child abuse (type, age of first abuse, frequency) to later violence. The analyses were based on data from a longitudinal sample of 1500 boys, divided over three samples (youngest, middle, and oldest), which were first studied when the boys were in first, fourth, and seventh grades, respectively. Ten waves of data are used to carefully map out the boys' delinquency careers. Record searches on early child abuse were undertaken for the youngest sample at age 12, for the middle sample at age 15, and for the oldest sample at age 18. About 30% of the participant families had been in contact with Child Welfare Services and about 20-25% of the boys in the total sample reached the highest level in the developmental pathway of overt antisocial behavior (i.e., violence). Having a record of child abuse was related to other risk factors for violent delinquency, but nevertheless made an independent contribution to the prediction of violent delinquency. In addition, the relationship of child abuse to a series of maladaptive outcomes in addition to violent delinquency was examined. |
Updated 05/20/2006