Abuse and deprivation in failing adoptions

Twelve children seen in psychiatric consultation by the authors over a 3-year period were failing in their adoptive placements. All twelve had been adopted as older children (average age at adoption 5 . Ten out of the12 were males. A retrospective case review demonstrated that all the children shared several common characteristics: (1)a history of both neglect and abusive treatment during at least the first two years of life, (2) a behavioral pattern that wasintermittently provocative and punishment seeking, and (3) an ability to elicit a sense of bewilderment and betrayal in theadoptive parents. Twenty-one months was the average duration of the adoption before the families sought the consultation. These adoptive families were all considered competent by the agencies involved. All had raised other natural and adoptive children successfully. Treatment offered by the authors seemed to be helpful in salvaging 4 of the 12 adoptive placements. The authors present these cases as a way of drawing attention to much needed research, both in better understanding the early attachment process in “older child” adoptions, and in better understanding the relative impact of abuse in influencing the child's subsequent attachment capacities.     

Sexual abuse in young children: its clinical presentation and characteristic patterns

A retrospective record survey was performed using all child clients aged less than 7 years seen at a community mental health center during the period 1982-1984. The total number of 202 children fell into three groups: sexually abused (n = 37), physically abused (n = 35), and nonabused clinical children (n = 130). These groups were compared in order to learn more about sexual abuse in young children. Family background of both abused groups were similar to each other but differed from the nonabused group in having more factors related to family stress than the nonabused group. Clinical presentations of all the children overlapped a great deal symptomatically; however, the sexually abused children had a statistically significant higher frequency of inappropriate sexual behavior than the other two groups. Several characteristics of the abusive patterns suffered by the two abuse groups differed at or near statistical significance: sexually abused children were more often victimized in single acts by nonrelated child perpetrators than were physically abused children.     

Regulation

Antitrust, the Media and the New Technology (1981, 560 pp.)

Current Developments in CATV 1981 (1981, 629 pp.)

Clifton O. Lawhorne, The Supreme Court and Libel (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1981—$19.95)

Robert D. Sack, Libel, Slander, and Related Problems (Practising Law Institute, 810 Seventh Ave., New York 10019 —$50.00)