Timing of Academic Difficulties for Neglected and Nonmaltreated Males and Females

• NCJ Number: 168309
• Journal: Child Abuse and Neglect Volume: 21 Issue: 9 Dated: (September 1997) Pages: 885-887
• Author(s): K Kendall-Tackett
• Date Published: 1997
• Length: 3 pages
• Grant Number(s): 90-CA-1305
• Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Health and Human Services
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study examined gender differences in the timing of academic difficulties for neglected and nonmaltreated students.

Abstract

Subjects were drawn from a population of 8,569 children attending public school in a small city in New York State, grades K-12 in 1987-88. The maltreated children were located from records of the New York State Child Abuse and Maltreatment Register. From a group of 1,239 children who had at least one substantiated incident of maltreatment at some point in their lives, a sample of 420 maltreated children was drawn. The "neglected only" group included only children for whom neglect without any other type of maltreatment was recorded (n=217); this group was 47 percent male and 53 percent female. The neglect- with-abuse group (n=107) included those who had experienced neglect in combination with either physical abuse (n=56) or sexual abuse (n=51) and was 31 percent male and 69 percent female. A comparison group of 420 nonmaltreated children was drawn from the general population of school children. The comparison group was matched with the maltreated group on gender, grade in school, school, residential location, and classroom (when possible). Data on school performance were collected from school records. Findings show that the timing of academic difficulties differed for males and females, with neglected and abused/neglected students following patterns similar to their nonmaltreated counterparts. For math and English, there was a substantial decline in grades in junior high for males and then a rebound of grades in senior high. For females, there was a linear pattern of academic decline between junior and senior high, although the senior-high drop was significant for math grades only. The math and English grades of the neglected and abused/neglected students paralleled that of the nonmaltreated students, but were lower at every level. 3 references