l state vocabulary, delay in expressive language, avoidance in social relationships, aggression, social information processing deficit, suicide, alcohol abuse, and anxiety disorder (Stevenson, 1999). These sequelae are often associated with certain types of abuse. Effects of physical abuse for instance are: infants and preschoolers display problems with attachment and aggressive behavior toward peers; school-age children have been reported to display academic difficulties, decreased self-esteem and social withdrawal, depression, anxiety, and aggressive behavior; adolescents often demonstrate juvenile delinquency, alcoholism, mental illness, and premature death (Becker, Alpert, BigFoot, Bonner, Geddie, Kaufman, & Walker, 1995). Knowing what child abuse and neglect are, having some knowledge as to its scope and prevalence, and being familiar with its effects leaves us with one important question yet unanswered. What can we do about it? There is no simple solution or quick fix it. The solution is going to be complex and made up of many different components. In order to understand what I have planned we must first know what is currently being done to solve this problem. Most of what is being done today focuses on the abuser not the victim. Researchers tend to focus on ways to treat offenders and think that the victims will be served by eliminating the abuse. Eliminating the abuse is good, but the effects of previous abuse are still there.A study such as, this was conducted by Wolfe and Edwards (1988); they attempted to determine an early prevention strategy for high-risk families. Subjects were selected from a group consisting of parents and children under supervision from a child protective service agency. They started with 53 women and ended with 30 subjects left for comparative analyses due to nonparticipation. The subjects were divided into a control group and a treatment group. To record self-report measures of risk in th...
