A longitudinal study of adolescents' recollections of family violence

Abstract

This investigation focuses on adolescents' recollections of childhood exposure to aversive events and the extent to which such recollections are related to variables from the traditional memory literature. Participants (n ¼ 153) were questioned about mother-directed abuse, child-directed abuse and punishment, and nonabusive events documented 6 years earlier. The teens forgot many details of family aggression, particularly when their mothers were the victims. Thirty-four per cent of those exposed to spousal violence failed to remember or report it, and 20% forgot or failed to report child abuse or punishment. Few participants exposed to escalated violence remembered and reported it, although almost all reported less severe aggression. Remembering was positively related to other measures of nontraumatic autobiographical memory, age, negative attitudes about the abuser, and recent exposure to family aggression. The results suggest that recollections of childhood abuse can be explained in part by variables that apply to a wide range of memory tasks.

Longitudinal Analysis of Children's Internal States Language and Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms Following a Natural Disaster

“…It is unclear, however, whether changing the prompt to elicit a more detailed description would have had a different influence on the association between PTSS and the frequency of internal states terms. The density of internal states terms (total internal states/word count total) in our study was consistent with another study using adolescent children's independent recollections of traumatic events collected during longer in-person interviews (e.g., Greenhoot et al, 2005).…”

“…The frequency of participant's disclosures of (negative) emotion, cognition, and perception terms was low, but this pattern is not surprising given that the children's responses were relatively brief. The density of internal states terms in their responses (total internal states/word count total) was consistent with another study using adolescent children's independent recollections of traumatic events collected during in-person interviews (e.g., Greenhoot et al, 2005). Furthermore, an alternative set of inferential analyses treating internal states as a dichotomous variable (0 = no use, 1 = use) revealed similar patterns to those presented in the following section.…”

“…Then, a total word count was calculated for each participant, so we could control for the number of words participants used when examining associations between internal states terms and other variables. Next, on the basis of a coding scheme adapted from Bauer, Stennes, and Haight (2003) and others (e.g., Greenhoot, McCloskey, & Glisky, 2005;, the coders counted the number of internal states terms, or words that referred to positive and negative emotions, cognitions, or perceptions. Emotion terms included explicit emotion terms, or terms that identify an actual emotion (e.g., "I was scared"), and implicit emotion terms, such as descriptions of behaviors commonly associated with emotions (e.g., "I was crying") or emotionrelated psychological disorders (e.g., "My mother's depression was really bad").…”

Child Maltreatment, Trauma‐Related Psychopathology, and Eyewitness Memory in Children and Adolescents

“…In addition, Eisen, Goodman, Qin, Davis, and Crayton (2007) reported that children with sexual abuse histories were particularly accurate in reporting genital touch and venipuncture that had taken place during a forensic medical examination, whereas children with histories of neglect were particularly inaccurate when reporting such experiences. Greenhoot, McCloskey, and Gilsky (2005) found that children who had suffered physical abuse and witnessed domestic violence were especially accurate in remembering the abuse incidents if they had more negative attitudes toward the abuser. Finally, Young and Widom (2014) examined recognition memory for emotional scenes from the International Affective Picture System in samples of adults with and without documented maltreatment histories.…”

Associations between Parenting Style, Physical Discipline, and Adjustment in Adolescents' Reports

“…Adolescents' ability to accurately recall parents' use vs non-use of diff erent types of aggression during childhood has been demonstrated in a prospective study. Greenhoot, McCloskey, and Glisky (2005) surveyed children aged 6-12 years about abuse and less severe aggression (push, grab, shove, slap or spank, hit with an object). Six years later (when participants were the same ages as the youth in this study) participants' recall was assessed with specifi c yes/no questions ("Did ___ ever … hit you that year?").…”