According to the American Sign Language (ASL) website, children with disabilities are abused 3.4 times more often than other children. Boystown University Hospital conducted a study to identify prevalence of disabilities among maltreated versus nonmaltreated children. Researchers merged over 39,000 hospital records from 1982 to 1992 with the social service central registry, the foster care review board and police records for both intra and extra familial maltreatment. This merger resulted in 6,000 matches, an overall maltreatment prevalence rate of 15 percent, with 64% having an identified disability. Obviously, this is much higher than the 15-20% prevalence rate of individuals with disabilities in the population. Published in 2000, the study found of maltreated children the following disability identifications:
Behavior disorders 38%
Speech/language disorders 9%
Mental retardation 6%
Hearing impairment 6%
Learning disability 6%
Other disabilities 4%
Health impairments 2%
ADD (w/o behavior disorder) 2%
Many people think that "behavior disorders" are a result of the abuse, however, this is not a precursor at all.In a related study, these researchers examined the records of public and parochial school children and matched these with the child abuse registry. 31% of the children with an identified disability had records of maltreatment in either social services or police agencies.The relative risk for maltreatment among children with disabilities was found to be three times that of other children. There was a strong association between disabilities & neglect, with children with disabilities being four times more likely to be victims than other children.Children with behavior disorders and mental disabilities were significantly more likely to be neglected.
Another interesting fact that I found about adults is that, adults with physical disabilities are abused at about the same rate as the general population, yet the abuse is more extensive and long lasting. Adults with other types of disability, including intellectual disabilities, are abused approximately 7 times more frequently than others.
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Why would children with disabilities be more likely to be abuse? Is it because the parents are more frustrated with their new life responsibilities? Is it because these parents can’t handle their children’s behavior and since they are more vulnerable and sometimes unable to care for themselves the parents feel they can do whatever they want and get away with it. This makes me so upset. These children didn’t ask for this type of lifestyle, but are willing to deal with what they have to live with, but why would people chose to make their lives harder by abusing them. What happens to the parents when they are catch? What happens to the children?
ReplyDeleteThis information is extremely interesting and horrible. It made me remember a family when I was a child. The family was made up of a son who had some form of mental retardation (I can't remember the details because I was so young), his mother and her boyfriend. The son would wet his bed at night, and in order to teach him a lesson his mother's boyfriend forced him into a bath of boiling water. He was dead in the morning and they were both arrested. It is so scary to think about these instances as a person and even more so as a teacher. It makes me think of what kind of plans and precautions am I going to have for my students. How has this knowledge affected your teaching strategies and the steps you are going to take as a teacher when interracting with the family of a child with a dissability? What kind of programs are there within the education community that addresses these issues? Very useful information. It definately gets me to think about what all I need to do as a teacher in order to try and keep my students safe, and stand up for their rights.
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