Decision-Making Deficits Among Maltreated Children

Date

2012

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Child Maltreatment

Abstract

Although maltreated children involved with child welfare services are known to exhibit elevated levels of health-risking behaviors, little is known about their decision-making processes leading to these behaviors. Research findings suggest that maltreated children exhibit developmental delays in neurocognitive and emotional regulation systems that could adversely impact their abilities to make decisions under conditions of risk. Whereas prior researchers have examined risky decision making as a global construct, maltreated children’s decision making was examined in two contexts in the present study: potential gains and potential losses. Comparing maltreated children (n = 25) and a nonmaltreated community group (n = 112), it was found that the maltreated children showed decision-making impairments for both domains: This impairment was especially prominent in the loss domain. The maltreated children took excessive risks and were insensitive to changes in expected value. Follow-up analyses revealed that these differences were primarily associated with insensitivity to changes in outcome magnitude for the risky option. Finally, response latency analyses indicated that the maltreated children were slower to make choices, reinforcing underlying differences in decision processes between groups. These results have implications for basic and translational science. (Author Abstract)

Description

Keywords

child abuse, risk taking, decision making, child welfare, long term effects, research

Citation

Weller, J. A., & Fisher, P. A. (2012). Decision-making deficits among maltreated children. Child maltreatment, 18(3):184-194.

DOI