Child Abuse and Neglect Essay

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Child Abuse and Neglect

Abuse of children has become a major social problem and a main cause of many people's suffering and personal problems. Neglect, physical abuse, and sexual abuse have an immediate and long-term effects on a child's development. The long-term effects of abuse and neglect of a child can be seen in psychiatric disorders, increased rates of substance abuse, and relationship difficulties. Child abuse and neglect is a huge problem. People that abuse are people who have been abused and neglected themselves.
There are links between neglect and abuse and later psychological, emotional, behavioral, and interpersonal disorders. The basis for this linkage is the impact that abuse and neglect have on brain development.
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Stressful experiences that are overtly traumatizing or chronic cause chronic elevated levels of neuroendocrine hormones. High levels of these hormones can cause permanent damage to the hippocampus, which is critical for memory.[5] Based on this we can assume that psychological trauma can impair a person's ability to create and retain memory and impede trauma resolution.
Abused and neglected children exhibit a variety of behaviors that can lead to any number of diagnoses. However, the effect of early abuse and neglect on the child can be seen in just a few critical areas of development. These areas include emotional regulation, response flexibility, a coherent integrated sense of self across time, the ability to engage in affect attunement with significant others (empathy and emotional connectedness), and conscience development.
The effects of early maltreatment on a child's development are profound and long lasting. It is the impact of maltreatment on a child's developing brain that causes effects seen in a wide variety of domains including social, psychological, and cognitive development. The ability to regulate emotions and become emotionally attuned with another depends on early experiences and the development of specific regions of the brain. Early maltreatment causes deficits in the development of these brain regions, primarily the orbito-frontal cortex and corpus callosum, because of the toxic effects of stress hormones on