Identification of adolescent abuse and future intervention prospects

Recent research indicates that the incidence rate for adolescent abuse equals or exceeds that of all other age groups. Because adolescent abuse is underreported to protective service agencies, it is less likely to be identified and served. Identifying adolescent abuse and understanding the dynamics of family interaction are important problems for researchers and service providers. Analysis of a sample of 62 two-parent families containing an adolescent highlights factors on the Adolescent Abuse Inventory (Sebes, 1983) and other characteristics of the family system and individuals which discriminated high-risk from low-risk family systems. The second part of the paper describes the procedures of an intervention project based on this classification system.