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The Risks of Maltreatment for Children with Disabilities

While the risk factors that contribute to child maltreatment in all children apply to children with disabilities too, the presence of a disability increases both the risk of maltreatment and the impact of maltreatment in the following ways:

Child

• Greater dependence on caregivers for their personal needs and longer-term dependence on caregivers because they may be less in charge of their own bodies;
• Physical, cognitive, emotional/mental health disabilities that interfere with being able to understand, resist, or tell someone about abuse;
• More likely to have their symptoms of abuse or neglect ignored because their symptoms are confused with those of the disability itself; and
• Greater isolation and fewer chances to socialize that may contribute to low self-esteem and less opportunity to learn how to prevent or end abuse.

Family

• Higher costs for caring for their child with special needs, including medical care, therapy, equipment, transportation, and childcare;
• More social isolation;
• More emotional stress and time pressures to coordinate care for their child’s behavioral, medical, or educational needs;
• Lack of programs for parents of children with special needs; and
• Differing cultural values and beliefs about disability and the need for intervention.

Reprinted with permission from Every Child Special – Every Child Safe: Protecting Children with Disabilities From Maltreatment – A Call to Action (2000). By G.L. Krahn, et al., Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, page 22. Retrieved 1/3/06 from www.ohsu.edu/oidd/pdfs/OAKSProjectbw.pdf.

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Retrieved from the Web site of the Institute on Community Integration, University of Minnesota (http://ici.umn.edu/products/impact/191/default.html). Citation: Gaylord, V., LaLiberte, T., Lightfoot, E. & Hewitt, A. (Eds.). (2006). Impact: Feature Issue on Children with Disabilities in the Child Welfare System 19(1). [Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, Institute on Community Integration.]
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