Child Abuse Case Study

“Over the past decade, more than 20,000 children in America are believed to have been killed in their own homes by family members; that is four times the number of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, giving America the worst reports of child abuse in the industrialized world” (Radford 2011). There are four types of abuse that must be understood before reporting; physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and physical or emotional neglect. Child abuse leaves such a strong impact on the victim’s life even after transitioning into an adult; he/she is still a prisoner of their childhood; attempting to create a new life, still recalling the events of the trauma. The key concept for preventing and reducing child abuse and neglect is understanding;

In 1970, a case that was so unique and hard to believe would impact the world of psychology in understanding the crucial long-term effects of sever abuse and how it can take a toll on the child’s way of growing up and fully functioning in terms of language, relationships, and ability to handle basic tasks. The case study was of a child under the pseudonym, Genie, who was a victim of critical child abuse and neglect so severe that the circumstances of her abuse caused her to become immobilized, severely malnourished, and prevented her from learning language due to her isolation from society causing her a lack of speech, which psychologists wanted to find out if there was a critical period of when language needs to be learned and the excruciating circumstances that would prevent a person from learning speech at all. Not only did this case have such a huge impact on the world of psychology and giving them more insight of child abuse and how much the abuse can be a strain on the victim, but it also for the first time really gave the public an insight on how much they should pay attention to any strange living arrangements for kids, but also really pay attention to the people in their communities and help any way possible. Communities need to strengthen the trust and unity in their residence, know the names of neighbors, the names of each individual child in the family, and make sure that the family also has some type of relationship or interaction