Child Abuse and Conduct Disorder in Children

Child Abuse and Conduct Disorder in Children

According to Sadock B., Sadock V. &Sadock V.A.(2008, P.96) in their book, Kaplan and Sadock concise textbook of child and adolescent psychiatry, there in a common consensus on the fact that those children that chronically experience sexual or physical abuse when they are young are at a risk of developing aggressive behavior at later years. They also assert that the onset of aggressive behavior in children with a history of maltreatment manifests early in boys than in girls. That is to say that, conduct disorder reaches diagnostic criteria at the age between 14 and 16 for girls and at the age of between 10 and 12 years old in boys (Sadock B., Sadock V. &Sadock V.A., 2008, P.96). For instance, McCabe, et al (2005,p.575) conducted an experiment with an aim of testing the hypothesis that those children who are exposed to violent behavior end up developing conduct problems during their adolescence. This was a two years study that used a sample of 423 adolescents between the ages of 12 to 17 years old. This was a random sample of high risk youths being treated in public psychiatric hospitals. The information needed was collected from studying the adolescents' pattern of treatment and care (Mc Cabe, et al 2005, p.575). The results put in their article titled, The Relation between Violence Exposure and Conduct Problems among Adolescents: a Prospective Study indicated that those children who had been exposed to community violence had a higher chance of developing conduct disorder which would manifest in external symptoms. On the other hand, child maltreatment predicted psychiatric disorder that manifested without externalizing the symptoms. However a child's exposure to violence between intimate partners did not predict either of the two outcomes. Even where child maltreatment and exposure to violence between intimate partners were controlled, a child's exposure to violence was a great contributing factor to adolescent misconduct. It is therefore imperative to form treatment solutions that address the internalizing and externalizing symptoms, in the treatment of socially deviant adolescent with a history of child maltreatment. The study also gives significant pointers towards the prevention of psychiatric disorders in young people. Romano, Zoccolilo & Paquette (2006, p. 329) did a study that investigated the relationship between child maltreatment and behavior disorder in a sample of pregnant adolescents. Cross-sectional information was collected from a sample of 252 pregnant adolescents from a home group setting, hospitals and high schools in Canada. The girls filled up a questionnaire and underwent an interview on their history of psychiatric disorder. The study used latent class analysis to associate child maltreatment and behavioral disorder. The results in their article, Histories of child maltreatment and psychiatric disorder in pregnant