Children's perceptions of their abusive experience: measurement and preliminary findings

Contemporary clinical formulations and recent research highlight the importance of cognitive-attributional symptoms in explaining the outcomes of child abuse. This study is directed toward the preliminary identification and measurement of these attributions. From a larger sample, 47 child abuse victims (ages 6 to 18) were administered a 16-item interview measure designed to evaluate several attributions common to this population. Children and their caregivers also completed several other clinical measures. A priori constructs containing most items were formed andfound to possess internal consistency and modest stability. Analyses revealed the utility (e.g., differences across abuse types and relationships with perpetrator), criterion validity (e.g., relationship to post-traumatic stress disorder, internalizing symptoms), and content validity (e.g., professional input/ratings) of certain constructs and individual items. These findings identify some of the attributional sequelae of child abuse that deserve further clinical attention and research evaluation. Suggestions for developments in these two areas are discussed.