The Impact of Emotional Abuse on Psychological Distress among Child Protective Services-Involved Adolescents with Borderline-to-Mild Intellectual Disability

Abstract

Childhood maltreatment is a robust contributing factor to mental health problems in adolescents. The current study examines the impact of childhood emotional abuse on adolescent psychological distress in 48 youths with borderline-to-mild intellectual disability, as compared to 117 peers with average intellectual functioning. Both emotional abuse and intellectual functioning predicted the severity of youth psychological distress. Childhood emotional abuse has an impact on adolescent distress, and maltreated child welfare-involved youth with lower IQ levels may be more vulnerable to distress than youth with average IQ. This raises a question regarding the detection of subtle manifestations of intellectual disability and the need to attend to mental health within this subpopulation receiving child welfare services.

Keywords:

• child abuse
• child maltreatment
• IQ
• intellectual disability
• mental health

Acknowledgments

MAP (Maltreatment and Adolescent Pathways) Longitudinal Study principal investigator: Christine Wekerle; co-investigators and collaborators include (in alphabetical order) Michael Boyle, McMaster University; Deborah Goodman, Children's Aid Society of Toronto; Bruce Leslie, Catholic Children's Aid Society of Toronto; Harriet MacMillan, McMaster University; Brenda Moody, Peel Children's Aid Society; Lil Tonmyr, Public Health Agency of Canada; Nico Trocmé, McGill University; Anne-Marie Wall, York University (deceased); Abby Goldstein, OISE/University of Toronto.

Portions of this article were presented at a symposium (J. Weiss, Chair) at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association in Toronto, Canada, August 2009.

We thank the youth participants, MAP advisory board and community agencies, and the MAP research support staff, especially Maria Chen and Ronald Chung. The MAP Longitudinal Study is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR; No. VGH63212; NO. 74547), Institute of Gender and Health (IGH), the Provincial Centre of Excellence in Child and Youth Mental Health at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (No. 341), and the Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services (No. 124). Dr. Wekerle's work was supported by a mid-career award from CIHR IGH and the Ontario Women's Health Council (No. 100079), and an Interchange Canada Assignment to the Public Health Agency of Canada. Dr. Weiss' work was supported by a new investigator fellowship from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation.

Notes

1. In the province of Ontario, Canada, CPS-involved youth are classified as either a: (1) Crown Ward through an order of the court, wherein the CPS agency is the legal guardian. Parents may seek access (i.e., visitation or contact) to their child who is a Crown Ward through a court application; (2) Society Ward, which refers to children & youth who are placed in the care of CPS by a court order for a period of less than 12 months; (3) Temporary Care Ward, where a child or youth may be the subject of a temporary order of care and custody or in care through a temporary care agreement, whereby they are brought into care at the request of or with the co-operation of his/her parents; (4) Community Family, wherein the CPS agency becomes involved to help a family while the youth remains in the custody of the family.

2. The CTQ Minimization-Denial Scale point is given if a participant notes Very Often to any the following items: “There is nothing I wanted to change about my family”, “I had the perfect childhood”, and “I had the best family in the world.”

3. There were no participants with composite IQ scores in the High average range (115 – 129).