Biomaterial Database

Illegitimacy, child abuse and neglect, and cognitive development. 1990

A Walsh

Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice, Boise State University, Idaho 83725.

This study explored the relationship between illegitimate birth and cognitive development among 513 boys on probation. Prior research has shown that being part of a single-parent household leads to diminished verbal capacities and often puts a child in greater danger of abuse and neglect. Frequent abuse is thought to lead to the enhancement of visual and spatial skills relative to verbal skills through a process of "frozen watchfulness". I hypothesized that illegitimate boys from one-parent homes would have greater verbal-performance discrepancy scores than would boys from other combinations of birth status and family structure. These boys had the lowest verbal IQ and highest performance IQ scores and, hence, the largest discrepancy. These boys also suffered the highest degree of abuse and neglect of all four birth status/family structure combinations studied.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D007086	Illegitimacy	The state of birth outside of wedlock. It may refer to the offspring or the parents.	Legitimacy,Pregnancy, Premarital,Premarital Pregnancy,Unmarried Fathers,Unmarried Mothers,Father, Unmarried,Fathers, Unmarried,Mother, Unmarried,Mothers, Unmarried,Pregnancies, Premarital,Premarital Pregnancies,Unmarried Father,Unmarried Mother
D007360	Intelligence	The ability to learn and to deal with new situations and to deal effectively with tasks involving abstractions.
D007604	Juvenile Delinquency	The antisocial acts of children or persons under age which are illegal or lawfully interpreted as constituting delinquency.	Delinquency, Juvenile
D008149	Love	Affection; in psychiatry commonly refers to pleasure, particularly as it applies to gratifying experiences between individuals.	Loves
D008297	Male		Males
D010553	Personality Development	Growth of habitual patterns of behavior in childhood and adolescence.	Development, Personality
D011610	Psychosocial Deprivation	The absence of appropriate stimuli in the physical or social environment which are necessary for the emotional, social, and intellectual development of the individual.	Deprivation, Psychosocial,Deprivations, Psychosocial,Psychosocial Deprivations
D002648	Child	A person 6 to 12 years of age. An individual 2 to 5 years old is CHILD, PRESCHOOL.	Children
D002649	Child Abuse	Abuse of children in a family, institutional, or other setting. (APA, Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms, 1994)	Abuse Experiences, Childhood,Child Neglect,Child Neglect Experiences,Child Neglect, Physical,Childhood Abuse Experiences,Childhood Neglect Experiences,Neglect Experience, Childhood,Neglect Experiences, Childhood,Physical Neglect, Childhood,Child Maltreatment,Child Mistreatment,Abuse Experience, Childhood,Abuse, Child,Child Neglect Experience,Childhood Abuse Experience,Childhood Neglect Experience,Childhood Physical Neglect,Childhood Physical Neglects,Experience, Child Neglect,Experience, Childhood Abuse,Experience, Childhood Neglect,Maltreatment, Child,Mistreatment, Child,Neglect Experience, Child,Neglect, Child,Neglect, Childhood Physical,Neglect, Physical Child,Physical Child Neglect,Physical Child Neglects
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man