PHYSICAL PROBLEM
Physical abuse is abuse involving contact intended to cause feelings of intimidation, pain, injury, or other physical suffering or bodily harm.
Physical abuse includes hitting, slapping, punching, choking, pushing, and other types of contact that result in physical injury to the victim. Physical abuse can also include behaviors such as denying the victim of medical care when needed, depriving the victim of sleep or other functions necessary to live, or forcing the victim to engage in drug/alcohol use against his/her will. It can also include inflicting physical injury onto other targets, such as children or pets, in order to cause psychological harm to the victim.
Sexual abuse is any situation in which force is used to obtain participation in unwanted sexual activity. Forced sex, even by a spouse or intimate partner with whom consensual sex has occurred, is an act of aggression and violence.
Categories of sexual abuse include:
1. Use of physical force to compel a person to engage in a sexual act against his or her will, whether or not the act is completed;
2. Attempted or completed sex act involving a person who is unable to understand the nature or condition of the act, unable to decline participation, or unable to communicate unwillingness to engage in the sexual act, e.g., because of underage immaturity, illness, disability, or the influence of alcohol or other drugs, or because of intimidation or pressure.
EMOTIONAL PROBLEM
Emotional abuse (also called psychological abuse or mental abuse) can include humiliating the victim privately or publicly, controlling what the victim can and cannot do, withholding information from the victim, deliberately doing something to make the victim feel diminished or embarrassed, isolating the victim from friends and family, implicitly blackmailing the victim by harming others when the victim expresses independence or happiness, or denying the victim access to money or other basic resources and necessities.
Emotional/verbal abuse is defined as any behavior that threatens, intimidates, undermines the victim’s self-worth or self-esteem, or controls the victim’s freedom. This can include threatening the victim with injury or harm, telling the victim that they will be killed if they ever leave the relationship, and public humiliation. Constant criticism, name-calling, and making statements that damage the victim’s self-esteem are also
common forms of emotional abuse. Often perpetrators will use children to engage in emotional abuse by teaching them to harshly criticize the victim as well. Emotional abuse includes conflicting actions or statements which are designed to confuse and create insecurity in the victim. These behaviors also lead the victim to question themselves, causing them to believe that they are making up the abuse or that the abuse is their fault.
Emotional abuse includes forceful efforts to isolate the victim, keeping them from contacting friends or family. This is intended to eliminate those who might try to help the victim leave the relationship and to create a lack of resources for them to rely on if they were to leave. Isolation results in damaging the victim’s sense of internal strength, leaving them feeling helpless and unable to escape from the situation.
People who are being emotionally abused often feel as if they do not own themselves; rather, they may feel that their significant other has nearly total control over them. Women or men undergoing emotional abuse often suffer from depression, which puts them at increased risk for suicide, eating disorders, and drug and alcohol abuse.
Verbal Abuse
Verbal abuse is a form of abusive behavior involving the use of language. It is a form of profanity that can occur with or without the use of expletives.
Abusers may ignore, ridicule, disrespect, and criticize others consistently; manipulate words; purposefully humiliate; falsely accuse; manipulate people to submit to undesirable behavior; make others feel unwanted and unloved; threaten economically; place the blame and cause of the abuse on others; isolate victims from support systems; harass; demonstrate Jekyll and Hyde behaviors, either in terms of sudden rages or behavioral changes, or where there is a very different "face" shown to the outside world vs. with victim.
While oral communication is the most common form of verbal abuse, it includes abusive words in written form.
SOCIAL PROBLEMS
Social Anxiety Disorder. The features of social anxiety disorder include an excessive and unreasonable fear of social situations. If forced into a feared situation, the child may become upset and exhibit a temper tantrum. Children with this disorder may be extremely shy around strangers or groups of people and may express their anxiety by crying or be overly clingy with caregivers. The child may not want to go to school and may avoid interactions with peers.
Separation Anxiety Disorder. Separation anxiety is thought to be a normal part of infant development. It begins when the child is about 8 old and declines after about 15 months of age. During this period the child understands the separation between self and primary caretaker. The child understands that he or she can be separated from the caretaker, but does not comprehend that the caretaker will return, which leads to anxiety. Separation anxiety disorder, on the other hand, is not a normal developmental phase. It is characterized by age-inappropriate fear of being away from home, parents or other family members. A child with separation anxiety disorder may be excessively clingy to family members, may fear going to school, or being alone. He or she may experience frequent physical complaints (i.e., headaches, stomach upset).
BEHAVIORAL PROBLEMS
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
Attention-Deficit Disorder can affect a child in many different ways. Most people know that ADHD can cause children to struggle with things like sitting still, being quiet, paying attention, and staying organized. But ADHD also can make it hard for children to make friends.
In a classroom of 30 children, it is likely that at least 2 students are affected by ADHD.1 Exactly how ADHD adds to social problems is not understood fully, but children with ADHD often have trouble with simple social interactions and struggle to follow social cues. Children with ADHD are half as likely to have many good friends and are less likely to play with a group of friends, compared to children without ADHD.2
Having good friends adds to children's happiness and impacts their mental health and development. In some cases, children with peer problems may be at higher risk for anxiety, behavioral and mood disorders, substance abuse, and delinquency as teenagers.3
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD or AD/HD or ADD) is a neurobehavioral[1] developmental disorder.[2] It is primarily characterized by "the co-existence of attentional problems and hyperactivity, with each behavior occurring infrequently alone" and symptoms starting before seven years of age.[3]ADHD is the most commonly studied and diagnosed psychiatric disorder in children, affecting about 3% to 5% of children globally[4][5] and diagnosed in about 2% to 16% of school aged children.[6] It is a chronic disorder [7] with 30% to 50% of those individuals diagnosed in childhood continuing to have symptoms into adulthood.[8][9] Adolescents and adults with ADHD tend to develop coping mechanisms to compensate for some or all of their impairments.[10] 4.7% of American adults are estimated to live with ADHD.[11]
ADHD is diagnosed two to four times as frequently in boys as in girls,[12][13] though studies suggest this discrepancy may be due to subjective bias of referring teachers.[14] ADHD management usually involves some combination of medications, behavior modifications, lifestyle changes, and counseling. Its symptoms can be difficult to differentiate from other disorders, increasing the likelihood that the diagnosis of ADHD will be missed.[15] Additionally, most clinicians have not received formal training in the assessment and treatment of ADHD, particularly in adult patients.[15]
ADHD and its diagnosis and treatment have been considered controversial since the 1970s.[16] The controversies have involved clinicians, teachers, policymakers, parents and the media. Topics include the actuality of the disorder, its causes, and the use of stimulant medications in its treatment.[17][18][19] Most healthcare providers accept that ADHD is a genuine disorder with debate in the scientific community centering mainly around how it is diagnosed and treated.[20][21][22] The American Medical Association concluded in 1998 that the diagnostic criteria for ADHD are based on extensive research and, if applied appropriately, lead to the diagnosis with high reliability
Mental Retardation
Mental retardation (MR) is a generalized disorder, characterized by significantly impaired cognitive functioning and deficits in two or more adaptive behaviors that appears before adulthood. It has historically been defined as an Intelligence Quotient score under 70.[1] Once focused almost entirely on cognition, the definition now includes both a component relating to mental functioning and one relating to individuals' functional skills in their environment. As a result, a person with a below-average intelligence quotient (BAIQ) may not be considered mentally retarded. Syndromic mental retardation is intellectual deficits associated with other medical and behavioral signs and symptoms. Non-syndromic mental retardation is intellectual deficits that appear without other abnormalities.
Mental retardation is a subtype of intellectual disability, and that term is now preferred by most advocates in most English-speaking countries as a euphemism for mental retardation. However, intellectual disability is a broader concept, and includes intellectual deficits that are too mild to properly qualify as mental retardation, too specific (as in specific learning disability), or acquired later in life, through acquired brain injuries or neurodegenerative diseases like dementia. Intellectual disabilities may appear at any age.
Developmental disability is any disability that is due to problems with growth and development. This term encompasses many congenital medical conditions that have no mental or intellectual components, although it, too, is sometimes used as a euphemism for mental retardation.
Autism
Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old.[2] Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their synapses connect and organize; how this occurs is not well understood.[3] It is one of three recognized disorders in the autism spectrum (ASDs), the other two being Asperger syndrome, which lacks delays in cognitive development and language, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (commonly abbreviated as PDD-NOS), which is diagnosed when the full set of criteria for autism or Asperger syndrome are not met.[4]
Autism has a strong genetic basis, although the genetics of autism are complex and it is unclear whether ASD is explained more by rare mutations, or by rare combinations of common genetic variants.[5] In rare cases, autism is strongly associated with agents that cause birth defects.[6] Controversies surround other proposed environmental causes, such as heavy metals, pesticides or childhood vaccines;[7] the vaccine hypotheses are biologically implausible and lack convincing scientific evidence.[8] The prevalence of autism is about 1–2 per 1,000 people; the prevalence of ASD is about 6 per 1,000, with about four times as many males as females. The number of people diagnosed with autism has increased dramatically since the 1980s, partly due to changes in diagnostic practice; the question of whether actual prevalence has increased is unresolved.[9]
Parents usually notice signs in the first two years of their child's life.[10] The signs usually develop gradually, but some autistic children first develop more normally and then regress.[11] Although there is no known cure, early behavioral or cognitive intervention can help autistic children gain self-care, social, and communication skills.[10] Not many children with autism live independently after reaching adulthood, though some become successful.[12] An autistic culture has developed, with some individuals seeking a cure and others believing autism should be accepted as a difference and not treated as a disorder.[13]
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