Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 7, 1993 TAG: 9310070160
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The report underscores both the "tremendous economic and social pressures that are crushing" many families with a disabled child and the need to help them, said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who sponsored the 1988 legislation requiring the study.
The report, by the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, is the first nationwide look at the extent of maltreatment among children with a physical, mental or emotional disability.
Researchers found that disabled children are physically abused at twice the rate of other children, sexually abused at nearly twice the rate and emotionally neglected at almost three times the rate.
Overall, children with disabilities are maltreated at 1.7 times the rate of other children. And in nearly half of those abuse cases, the child's disability was at the root of the abuse or neglect, according to the report by the agency, a part of the Health and Human Services Department.
In all but 14 percent of cases studied involving a disabled child, the maltreatment either was committed or permitted by a child's primary caretaker, who generally is the mother, the study said.
The study was based on reports of maltreatment, substantiated by child welfare agencies, involving 1,834 children.
"Children are vulnerable. But children with disabilities are the most vulnerable," Dodd said in an interview. "It's terribly disturbing to realize that children with disabilities are being maltreated to such a high degree."
The researchers' findings are based on data collected from 35 child protective services agencies. Each agency provided information on all cases of substantiated maltreatment over four to six weeks in early 1991.
The study also found that maltreatment often causes children to develop a disability. More than half of all children who were neglected developed a disability, as well as 62 percent of children who were sexually abused, 48 percent who were emotionally abused and 15 percent who were physically abused.
"It's an ugly thought - how could anyone maltreat a child, a child with a disability," Dodd said. "But I'm not sitting in public housing, out of a job, taking care of four kids, trying to raise a family on my own, with back rent due and a number of outstanding doctor bills. That's not an excuse, but you begin to understand."
Dr. Edward Schor, associate professor of pediatrics at Tufts Medical School, and Dr. James M. Perrin, associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, agreed that caring for a disabled child can be expensive, stressful and physically exhausting.
Parents may also become isolated from friends, family and their community.
"They often don't have the kind of social support systems that they need to help them through difficult times," Schor said. "It just makes their situation and their ability to parent a little bit more fragile, a little bit more likely to take a direction that is not good for the child or good for their relationship with the child."
by CNB