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Emotional and Physical Violence Experienced by Children with Disabilities and Long-Term Illnesses

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Handbook of Anger, Aggression, and Violence

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Abstract

Children with DLTIs are more likely to experience emotional and physical violence compared to healthy children. A child’s psychiatric illness, such as developmental disabilities, mental health problems, behavioral disorders, and learning and memory difficulties, increase the risk of violence more than physical health problems. In addition, psychiatric illnesses increase the risk of emotional violence more than physical violence. Child maltreatment can be understood and explained by the developmental-ecological model of Urie Bronfenbrenner, where risk factors and protective factors occur at all levels of the ecological systems, and where the balance between factors determines whether the child will be maltreated or not. The special needs, behavioral challenges, and social constraints caused by children’s DLTIs increase stress in the care environment, for instance, in the family, which is one of the microsystems of the ecological model. The increased stress of parents weakens interaction between parent and child, which, together with other risk factors and the lack of protective factors, exposes children to maltreatment. In addition, it is more difficult for children with DLTIs to resist abuse and bring it to light. Knowledge about children’s DLTIs as a risk factor for different forms of violence should be utilized when allocating resources to preventive work and better identification and treatment of maltreatment.

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Abbreviations

DLTI:

Disability and long-term illness

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Eastern Finland, Department of Social Sciences/Kuopio campus, Kuopio, Finland

    Piia Seppälä & Timo Toikko

Authors
  1. Piia Seppälä
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  2. Timo Toikko
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Correspondence to Timo Toikko .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Clinical and Applied Health Research, University of Hull, Hull, UK

    Colin Martin

  2. King's College London, London, UK

    Victor R. Preedy

  3. University of Westminster, London, UK

    Vinood B. Patel

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Seppälä, P., Toikko, T. (2023). Emotional and Physical Violence Experienced by Children with Disabilities and Long-Term Illnesses. In: Martin, C., Preedy, V.R., Patel, V.B. (eds) Handbook of Anger, Aggression, and Violence. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98711-4_187-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98711-4_187-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-98711-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-98711-4

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