Contribution of infant characteristics to child abuse.

Abstract

This review suggested that atypical infants/children (with mental, physical, or behavioral abnormalities) are at risk for child abuse. An explanatory model of abuse was outlined and several studies described whose findings provide support for the model. Some infants or infant attributes are especially likely to be perceived as aversive and as such may serve as aggression-facilitating stimuli. Other factors that contribute to the probability of abuse are dispositions of the parent, such as hyperreactivity to noxious stimulation. Such dispositions may be constitutional or may have developed during negative transactions with the child. Characteristics of the child and of the caretaker as well as their social ecology all affect the likelihood of abuse.

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