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Home > Acts of Omission: An Overview of Child Neglect > Acts of Omission: An Overview of Child Neglect: What are the Characteristics of Neglected Children and their Families?
Acts of Omission : An Overview of Child Neglect
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What are the Characteristics of Neglected Children and their Families?There are two reports that provide the most comprehensive data on the characteristics of neglected children and their families. The first is the National Incidence Study-3 (NIS-3) (Sedlack & Broadhurst, 1996), which sampled 35 CPS agencies around the country and looked at both children served by CPS as well as children identified by community professionals as being in danger of harm due to abuse or neglect. The second report is Child Maltreatment 1999 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001), which is based on the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS). NCANDS collects data from all CPS agencies in the United States regarding their services. According to these two reports, boys and girls are neglected at approximately the same rates. Findings regarding the children's age, however, differed between the two studies. The NIS-3 reports that that children ages 6 and older suffer from neglect at higher rates than children 5 and under. Child Maltreatment 1999 reports that the rates of neglect are highest for children ages 0-3 and decrease as children get older. The NIS-3 reports that the lowest income families (earning less than $15,000 per year) have the highest rates of neglect. NIS-3 estimates that 27 out of every 1,000 children are neglected in these families while the neglect rate for children living in families that earn more than $30,000 per year is less than 1 in 1,000 children. The NIS-3 also reports that neglect occurs more often in single parent families and in families with four or more children. Schumacher, Slep & Heyman (in press) reviewed 10 studies completed between 1974 and 1998 in which risk factors for neglect were identified. Some of the strongest associations were found between neglect and:
Some practitioners believe that untreated depression also is common among neglecting mothers, but there has been little research to substantiate this. Brown, Cohen, Johnson and Salzinger (1998) identified 21 risk factors associated with neglect and found that as the number of risk factors increases, the risk for neglect increases. It is important to point out, though, that the profile and risk factors for neglected children and their families are likely to vary significantly across types of neglect (Schumacher, Slep & Heyman, in press). For example, the characteristics and risk factors for a family in which a baby has been abandoned are likely to be very different than those for a family who refuses medical care for their teenager. More targeted research is needed to more fully understand the risk factors for various types of neglect in order to inform prevention and treatment programs.
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