Impact on Child Development

Child maltreatment during infancy and early childhood has been shown to negatively affect child development, including brain and cognitive development, attachment, and academic achievement. Child abuse and neglect can have enduring physical, intellectual, and psychological repercussions into adolescence and adulthood.

• Brain/cognitive development
• Attachment
• Academic achievement

API's Eight Principles of Parenting
Attachment Parenting International (2019)
Assists parents with how to better understand child development, how to identify their children's needs, and how to better to respond to their children with respect and empathy to ultimately become more conscious of and attuned to their needs.

Child Abuse and Neglect: Consequences
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2016)
Analyzes child abuse and neglect in terms of the physical, psychological, behavioral, and economic effects.

Creating a Secure Attachment in an Adopted Child
Hafetz
The Attached Family
Outlines the attachment process and examples of how families cope with a child struggling from an attachment disorder. The article also provides principals of adoptive parenting as well as parenting solutions for helping children who misbehave as a result of an attachment disorder.

Impact of Child Abuse
Blue Knot Foundation (2017)
Focuses on the physical and emotional consequences of child abuse, with specific emphasis on its long-term consequences in adolescence.

InBrief: The Impact of Early Adversity on Children’s Development
Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University (2007)
Frames the effect of childhood trauma on brain development within a discussion of the lifelong implications.

(Back to Top)