A history of receipt of public assistance was characteristic of both groups: 95.0% of maltreating and 90.8% of nonmaltreating families.
Examples of emotionally maltreating events included serious threats to injure a child, exposure to violent acts among family members, and abandonment by primary caregivers.
It is important that studies to date have not included caregiving that has been severe enough to be classified as maltreating.
Rather, families continued to receive services that were typically available to maltreating families in the community.
As such, all analyses examined intervention effects on maltreating families as a whole.
Fostering secure attachment in infants in maltreating families through preventive interventions.
The mean age of these children was 31.3 and 30.1 months, from the maltreating and nonmaltreating families, respectively.
The families in both groups were heavily reliant on public assistance, with 3.7% more of maltreating families receiving such support.