title: Maltreatment, competency deficits, and risk for academic and behavioral maladjustment.
abstract: Maltreatment was predicted to negatively affect children's academic and behavioral adjustment through the creation of deficits in academic engagement, social competencies, ego resiliency, and ego control. Teachers' comprehensive evaluations, school records, and camp counselors' ratings were obtained for 229 socioeconomically disadvantaged children (ages 5-12 years), 146 of whom had been maltreated. Maltreated children showed less academic engagement, more social skills deficits, and lower ego resiliency than nonmaltreated comparison children. Maltreated children manifested multiple forms of academic risk and showed more externalizing and internalizing behavior problems. The effects of maltreatment on academic maladjustment were partially mediated by academic engagement, whereas maltreatment's effects on behavior problems were mediated fully by social competencies and ego resiliency.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Brockport, 14420, USA.
authors.forename: S M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Shonk
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cicchetti
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology*; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D004521:Educational Measurement; D004522:Educational Status; D004532:Ego; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012307:Risk Factors; D012649:Self Concept; D012917:Social Adjustment; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors