The Condition of Child Abuse/Neglect as an Environmental Influence on Early Childhood Development.

The purpose of this article is to review the problem of child abuse and neglect, discuss the implications of the abusive/neglectful environment, and present possible intervention strategies focused upon both parent and school or day care settings. The introductory section focuses briefly on the complexities of defining child abuse and neglect and offers a definition from an environmental viewpoint. In the second section the scope of the problem is discussed. Three explanatory models of child abuse are discussed in the third section. The models discussed are the psychiatric, the sociologic, and the social-situational. The fourth section examines environmental effects on child rearing and specifies appropriate child rearing environments. In the concluding and fifth section, aspects of Helfer's (1978) intervention program (based on the thesis that abusive parents have not progressed normally through developmental stages), and the Head Start example of community intervention to improve children's environments are discussed. (Author/RH)