How Intimate Partner Violence Affects Children: Developmental Research, Case Studies, and Evidence-Based Intervention

Sandra A. Graham-Bermann, PhD, is a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she has been researching the ways in which different forms of violence affect children's adjustment, including their traumatic stress reactions and resilient coping.
 
She has studied children ages 3 to 13 in a variety of contexts, such as preschools, community settings, and shelters for abused women. As part of this program of research, she has developed new measures of children's fears and worries, their symptoms of traumatic stress, attitudes and beliefs about violence, family stereotyping, and conflicts in sibling relationships.
 
With support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services, and state and local foundations, she has studied multiple forms of violence in the lives of children and designed and evaluated interventions for women and children exposed to domestic violence. These programs have been adopted for use in five countries and 27 states.
 
Dr. Graham-Bermann is author of more than 50 research journal articles, and she is coeditor with Jeff Edleson of Domestic Violence in the Lives of Children: The Future of Research, Intervention, and Social Policy (2001).
 
Alytia A. Levendosky, PhD, is a professor of psychology and director of clinical training at Michigan State University, East Lansing, where she studies the intergenerational transmission of violence, specifically focusing on the prenatal effects of intimate partner violence.
 
The goal of her research program is to develop a comprehensive model of the psychological, physiological, and neurological mechanisms through which prenatal exposure to intimate partner violence affects the mother–child relationship and children's developmental outcomes. With colleagues at Michigan State University, she has followed a cohort of 200 children from pregnancy through age 10.
 
Her research has led to an understanding of the mother–child attachment relationship in the context of intimate partner violence. She has received support for her research from the National Institute of Justice, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Institute for Child Health and Development.
 
She is author of more than 45 research journal articles, and this is her first book.