Child Abuse and Neglect
Effects on Child Development, Brain Development, Psychopathology, and Interpersonal Relationships
Neglect, physical violence and sexual abuse (broadly called child abuse) have profound and long-term development of a child. The long-term effects of chronic early maltreatment in a caregiving relationship (also called complex PTSD) a child can be seen in higher rates of psychiatric disorders, higher rates of addiction, and a variety of serious relationship problems. Child abuse is an intergenerational problem. Very often the perpetrators of abuse and neglect are profoundly damaged people who were abused and neglected. There are clear links between neglect and abuse and later psychological, emotional, behavioral and interpersonal problems.
The basis of this relationship is the impact that abuse and neglect in the developing brain. Daniel Siegel, medical director of the Infant and Preschool Service at the University of California at Los Angeles, has found important links between interpersonal experiences and neurobiological development (Developing Mind: Toward a neurobiology of interpersonal experience. Daniel J . Siegel, Guilford Press, 1999.) We know that a child uses the mother’s state of mind to regulate the child’s mental processes. It is through a relationship sensitive, responsive, and the care with primary care provider that the child develops the capacity for self-regulation, emotional control, regulation of behavior and cognitive skills such as cause and effect thinking, including others.
Develop the child’s ability to control their emotions and develop a coherent sense of self requires sensitive and responsive parenting. The National Adoption Center found that 52% of adoptable children are the symptoms of attachment disorder. In another study by Cicchetti, Barnett and [2], 80% of child victims of violence or abuse had symptoms of attachment disorders. The best indicator of the type of attachment of a child’s state of mind with regard to the setting of the biological mother. type of attachment to a biological mother before the birth of your child can predict with 80% accuracy for classification of attachment of the child of six years. It is a remarkable discovery. Finally, recent research by Mary Dozier, Ph.D. [3] has shown that the type of attachment to an adoptive mother has a profound effect on the type of attachment of the child. He noted that the type of attachment the child is similar to that of the adoptive mother, after three months probation.
These results strongly support a mechanism for non-genetic transmission of attachment patterns across generations. Children who have been victims of sexual abuse is a significant risk of developing anxiety disorders (2. 0 times the average), major depressive disorders (3. Mean of four times) the abuse of alcohol (2. Average of 5 times ) drug abuse, (3 8. the average), and antisocial behavior (4. average 3 times) [4]. In general, the left brain is the site of the language of motor activity in the right side of the body and logical thinking based on the language. The right hemisphere of the brain responsible for motor activity on the left side of the body, perceptions of context, facial recognition, treatment, relational and emotional perception, and in general. The orbitofrontal cortex (the brain behind the eyes) is responsible for the integration of emotional responses generated in the limbic system with higher cognitive functions such as planning and language in the prefrontal lobes of the cerebral cortex. Left orbitofrontal cortex is responsible for memory creation while the right orbitofrontal cortex is responsible for memory retrieval. operation requires an integrated right and left hemispheres. A large number of synaptic connections between neurons are formed during the first year of life in the middle of the second year of life. An integrated brain requires connections between the hemispheres by the corpus callosum. Abused and neglected children have smaller corpus callosum that children are not battered. Abused and neglected children have been integrated bit hemispheres.
This poor integration of hemispheres and underdevelopment of the orbitofrontal cortex is the basis of symptoms such as difficulty regulating emotion, lack of cause and effect thinking, inability to accurately recognize emotions in others the child’s disability express their own feelings of the child, the sense of history and autobiographical self inconsistency and a lack of awareness. The brains of abused children are not so well integrated that the brains of abused children. This helps explain why abused children have serious difficulties with emotional regulation, integrated functioning and social development. development of awareness and capacity for empathy are largely functions of the orbitofrontal cortex. When the development in this region of the brain is blocked, there are important social and emotional difficulties. Interestingly, the orbitofrontal cortex is sensitive to the recognition of faces and eyes. Abused children often have attachment disorders because of its lack of sensitivity of the biological parents of response interactions with children.
Early interpersonal experiences have a profound impact on the brain because brain circuits responsible for social perception is the same as those that integrate functions such as the creation of meaning, the regulation of states of the body, emotion regulation, the organization memory and interpersonal communication skills and empathy. stressful experiences that are overtly traumatizing or chronic cause chronic elevated levels of neuroendocrine hormones. High levels of these hormones can cause permanent damage to the hippocampus, which is essential for memory. [5] On this basis one can assume that psychological trauma can affect a person’s ability to produce and maintain the memory and prevent the resolution of trauma. Child abuse show a variety of behaviors that can lead to a number of diagnoses. However, the effect of early abuse and neglect of children can be seen in several critical areas of development. These domains include emotional regulation, regulation of behavior, attachment, biology, flexibility of response, integrated and coherent sense of self through time, the ability to participate in an impact on the lineup with significant others ( empathy and emotional connectivity), the self-concept, cognitive and learning, and development of consciousness.
The effects of abuse in early child development are profound and lasting. It is the impact of abuse on the child’s brain development that causes the effects observed in a variety of fields, including social, psychological and cognitive development. The ability to control their emotions and emotionally attuned to another depends on early experience and development of specific brain regions. In early abuse leads to deficits in the development of these brain regions, the orbitofrontal cortex, especially frontal and corpus callosum, because the toxic effects of stress hormones in the developing brain. These results suggest that effective treatment requires a significant emotional relationship to listening. Siegel said: “As parents reflect with their securely attached children’s mental states that create their shared subjective experience, which will join them in an important co-constructive process of understanding how the mind works. The inherent characteristic of a Secure attachment – contingent, collaborative communication – is also a key element in how to facilitate the integration of internal relations in a child. [6] This has implications for the effective treatment of abused children. For example, when a therapeutic relationship, the client is able to reflect on aspects of traumatic memories and experience of the effects associated with those memories without becoming dysregulated, the client developing a greater capacity to tolerate increasing amounts of concern. Customer learns to regulate itself. The tuned resonance relationship between the client and the therapist allows the client to make sense (a function of the left hemisphere) memories, autobiographical representations, and affect (right hemisphere functions.) Effective treatments, such as the development of dyadic psychotherapy, can have important positive effects on later development. [2 Cicchetti] and Barnett, 1991. [3] ‘The integration of children in foster care: the role of caregiver state of mind, Child Development, vol. 70, pp. 1467-1477, 2001. [4] MacMillan, HL, et al. al., childhood abuse and lifetime psychopathology in a community sample, American Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 158 No. 11, pp 1878-1883, November 2001 [5]. McEwen, B., “The development of the cerebral cortex XIII: Stress and brain development – II” Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 38, 101-103, 1999. [6] Siegel, 1999. P. 333.
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