This book analyzes in a developmental context understanding, assessing, and treating child maltreatment within the ecological framework. This framework is used to help systematically organize and integrate the complexity of the child maltreatment and developmental empirical literature by the following developmental stages: infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence. Two chapters cover each developmental stage: the first chapter presents a comprehensive discussion of normal development and the developmental consequences of child maltreatment; and the second chapter applies this ... More

This book analyzes in a developmental context understanding, assessing, and treating child maltreatment within the ecological framework. This framework is used to help systematically organize and integrate the complexity of the child maltreatment and developmental empirical literature by the following developmental stages: infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence. Two chapters cover each developmental stage: the first chapter presents a comprehensive discussion of normal development and the developmental consequences of child maltreatment; and the second chapter applies this knowledge to the assessment and intervention strategies of child maltreatment. Research has yielded support for viewing child maltreatment from an ecological perspective, in that a spectrum of factors has been found to be correlated with protective and risk factors of abuse and neglect of children. These factors interact to create potentially protective or harmful conditions for children. Throughout the book, consideration of multiple risk and protective factors are utilized in assessing child maltreatment at each stage of development within the ecological perspective. This framework enables assessment of individual, family, and environmental elements and their interactions. To assess completely child maltreatment, all potential categories of contributory factors are considered. In addition, a case illustration at the end of each major chapter allows for the application of information presented in those chapters to enhance learning.