Witnessing intimate partner violence (IPV) and child maltreatment may place children on a lifelong trajectory toward violence. The primary aim of this research was to examine the associations between exposure to violence at home and two forms of violence in close relationships in Spanish adolescents: child-to-parent violence (CPV) and dating…

Maltreating mothers often struggle to respond sensitively to their children's distress. Examining psychophysiological processing of own child cues may offer insight into neurobiological mechanisms that promote sensitive parenting among high-risk mothers. The current study used event-related potential (ERP) methodology to examine associations…

Research Findings: Emotion knowledge is a core developmental process that has a documented relation to other aspects of social-emotional functioning, including social competence, emotion regulation, and behavior problems. Children who are maltreated have been found to have compromised emotion knowledge skills as well as higher levels of behavior…

Background: The study of gene-environment interactions (G by E) is one of the most promising strategies to uncover the origins of mental disorders. Replication of initial findings, however, is essential because there is a strong possibility of publication bias in the literature. In addition, there is a scarcity of research on the topic originated…

Objectives: The current article describes the process evaluation of a social early warning system (SEWS) for the prevention of child maltreatment in the federal state of Hamburg. This prevention initiative targets expectant mothers and their partners including an initial screening of risk factors for child maltreatment, a subsequent structured…

Maternal support offered to sexually abused children following disclosure may be a crucial factor in children's recovery. A person-centered approach was used to examine how profiles of nonoffending mothers could better describe their ability to support their children after disclosure. Cluster analyses based on a total of 226 nonoffending mothers…

Increasingly, female victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) are charged with IPV perpetration and mandated by courts or child protective services to receive domestic violence services. A critical need exists for evidence-based interventions targeting the needs of this unique population, but such research is scarce. To address this gap, we…

Background: A growing number of studies indicate that low income, African American men and women living in urban environments are at high risk for trauma exposure, which may have intergenerational effects. The current study employed psychophysiological methods to describe biomarkers of anxiety in children of traumatized mothers. Methods: Study…

Drawing on a three-year Irish research study, this paper focuses on the decision-making process in child contact, specifically the assessment and management of risk of continuing abuse to young people previously exposed to domestic abuse. A mixed methodological approach involved the completion of survey questionnaires by 219 mothers and the…

Objectives: This article presents findings on caregivers' attitudes towards physical punishment of children from 34 household surveys conducted in low- and middle-income countries in 2005 and 2006. The article analyzes the variability in attitudes by background characteristics of the respondents to examine whether various factors at the individual…

Trauma theory suggests that to recover from exposure to traumatic events, such as exposure to violence, therapeutic interventions should include opportunities to disclose and to process the fearful and stressful events. Yet little is known about the circumstances that foster disclosure of such information in therapeutic environments by children…

Objectives: The short-term outcomes of child sexual abuse (CSA) on academic, behavioral and social adaptation at school were examined in order to: (1) document the proportion of sexually abused (SA) girls struggling in school and define the nature of their difficulties, (2) explore whether different profiles of school adaptation could be…

Family engagement in home visiting (HV) is challenging. This study related attachment security of home visitors (n=48) and mothers (n=328) to family engagement in an HV program to prevent child maltreatment. Attachment security was assessed by using the Attachment Style Questionnaire to measure attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. Family…

We investigated the interaction effects between mother's lifetime depressive/anxiety disorders and psychosocial correlates of 6 to 11 year-old children's self-reported externalizing symptoms in the Quebec Child Mental Health Survey. A representative subsample of 1,490 Quebec children aged 6 to 11 years was selected from the original sample. We…

Objective: Maternal support is an important factor in predicting outcomes following disclosure of child sexual abuse; however, definition of the construct has been unclear and existing measures of maternal support are utilized inconsistently and have limited psychometric data. The purpose of this study was to develop a reliable and valid…