Preventing Abuse and Neglect in the Lives of Children with Disabilities

This book addresses the development of our understanding of the abuse and neglect in the lives of children with disabilities. Disabilities in childhood uniquely dispose children for their abuse and neglect. Additionally, abuse and neglect dispose children for disabilities. The care and education of children with disabilities requires unique knowledge and skills and so does the consideration of their abuse and neglect. This book is based on data generated from an analysis of cases involving the abuse and neglect of children with disabilities as well as on an analysis of the data based literature in this area. Readers are provided with analysis and reflection exercises throughout the text so that they may analyze and reflect on their own awareness of the abuse and neglect of children with disabilities. Each chapter also contains a set of implications for research and practice.  The final chapter focuses directly on prevention. Caregivers and professionals across disciplines will develop a new understanding of their roles in universal, secondary, and tertiary level prevention that is targeted, focused, data-based, and designed to prevent the abuse and neglect of children with disabilities in the first place.

E. Paula Crowley was born in West Cork in Ireland and there she received her early education. As a young adult she studied in the United States and upon graduation from the University of Incarnate Word, she worked as a teacher of students with emotional and behavioral disorders at Lackland Special Education Cooperative, in San Antonio, Texas. Following the completion of her Master’s degree studies, she worked at the San Antonio Children’s Center, a residential treatment facility associated with the San Antonio Medical Center.  Following years on the clinical staff there, she pursued doctoral studies and received her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Upon completion of her doctoral studies she came to Illinois State University and is a Professor in the Department of Special Education. Throughout her career she has encountered children with disabilities with histories of abuse and neglect. She is committed to the belief that the abuse and neglect of children with disabilities is preventable.