Child abuse syndrome

The terms child abuse and child maltreatment are often used interchangeably, although some researchers make a distinction between them, treating child maltreatment as an umbrella term to cover neglect, exploitation, and trafficking. Different jurisdictions have developed their own definitions of what constitutes child abuse for the purposes of removing children from their families or prosecuting a criminal charge. The whole of recorded history contains references to acts that can be described as child abuse or child maltreatment, but professional inquiry into the topic is generally considered to have begun in the 1960s. The July 1962 publication of the paper 'The Battered Child-Syndrome' authored principally to pediatric psychiatrist C. Henry Kempe and published in The Journal of the American Medical Association represents the moment that child maltreatment entered mainstream awareness. Before the article's publication, injuries to children—even repeated bone fractures—were not commonly recognized as the results of intentional trauma. Instead, physicians often looked for undiagnosed bone diseases or accepted parents' accounts of accidental mishaps such as falls or assaults by neighborhood bullies.:100–103 The study of child abuse and neglect emerged as an academic discipline in the early 1970s in the United States. Elisabeth Young-Bruehl maintains that despite the growing numbers of child advocates and interest in protecting children which took place, the grouping of children into 'the abused' and the 'non-abused' created an artificial distinction that narrowed the concept of children's rights to simply protection from maltreatment, and blocked investigation of the ways in which children are discriminated against in society generally. Another effect of the way child abuse and neglect have been studied, according to Young-Bruehl, was to close off consideration of how children themselves perceive maltreatment and the importance they place on adults' attitudes toward them. Young-Bruehl writes that when the belief in children's inherent inferiority to adults is present in society, all children suffer whether or not their treatment is labeled as 'abuse'.:15–16 Definitions of what constitutes child abuse vary among professionals, between social and cultural groups, and across time. The terms abuse and maltreatment are often used interchangeably in the literature.:11 Child maltreatment can also be an umbrella term covering all forms of child abuse and child neglect. Defining child maltreatment depends on prevailing cultural values as they relate to children, child development, and parenting. Definitions of child maltreatment can vary across the sectors of society which deal with the issue, such as child protection agencies, legal and medical communities, public health officials, researchers, practitioners, and child advocates. Since members of these various fields tend to use their own definitions, communication across disciplines can be limited, hampering efforts to identify, assess, track, treat, and prevent child maltreatment.:3 In general, abuse refers to (usually deliberate) acts of commission while neglect refers to acts of omission. Child maltreatment includes both acts of commission and acts of omission on the part of parents or caregivers that cause actual or threatened harm to a child. Some health professionals and authors consider neglect as part of the definition of abuse, while others do not; this is because the harm may have been unintentional, or because the caregivers did not understand the severity of the problem, which may have been the result of cultural beliefs about how to raise a child. Delayed effects of child abuse and neglect, especially emotional neglect, and the diversity of acts that qualify as child abuse, are also factors. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines child abuse and child maltreatment as 'all forms of physical and/or emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect or negligent treatment or commercial or other exploitation, resulting in actual or potential harm to the child's health, survival, development or dignity in the context of a relationship of responsibility, trust or power.' In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) uses the term child maltreatment to refer to both acts of commission (abuse), which include 'words or overt actions that cause harm, potential harm, or threat of harm to a child', and acts of omission (neglect), meaning 'the failure to provide for a child's basic physical, emotional, or educational needs or to protect a child from harm or potential harm'.:11 The United States federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act defines child abuse and neglect as, at minimum, 'any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation' or 'an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm'.