Developmental set and child abuse

Child abuse has been studied for the past twenty years in an attempt to define it, delineate etiology and suggest treatment modalities. Inadequate methodological controls and therapeutic assumptions incestuously shared have resulted in a theory that defines parents as bad, sick or ignorant but definitely as the culprits. More recently, sociological explanations have been written to present a psychosocial model for abuse. The purpose of this study was to explore whether a relationship exists between child abuse and a mother's knowledge of growth and development. Two groups of single parent, female headed families were chosen in the community. Twenty-three mothers participated in a thirty card growth and development sort, derived by the author from a developmental profile by Alpern and Boll (1972), indicating their understanding of when a child could first perform the behavior. The mothers were also assigned a number on an abuse continuum. The resulting data and demographic information were correlated using a Spearman Rank Order Correlation Coefficient and Chi-Squared Contingency analysis at the 0.05 level of significance. No significant relationship was found between level of abuse or knowledge of growth and development. Some significant associations were found within the demographic characteristics, with implications for study of variable clusters.Applied Science, Faculty ofNursing, School ofGraduat