Maternal causal beliefs for abused and handicapped children

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Abstract
There are good theoretical grounds for supposing that the beliefs that abusive parents hold about their children are an important factor in determining whether, and in what ways, a child will be abused. A knowledge of the causal attributions held by abusive parents, both in general and with respect to their children, should be a powerful and relevant route into parents' perceptions. However, existing evidence about the attributions of abusive parents is shown to be deficient in both quantity and quality. Interviews were conducted with 3 groups of 8 mothers: mothers of physically abused preschool children; a control group; and mothers of handicapped children (to provide a stressed but coping control). Each child was filmed interacting with a ‘contingency house’ devised to assess their reactions to contingent events. Attributions made during the interviews were analysed using the recently developed Leeds Attributional Coding System, and significant group differences were found, with abuse mothers attributing more control and more internal causes to their child and less to themselves. The group data, combined with two individual case studies, indicate that a knowledge of the mothers' attributions provides a greatly enhanced understanding of the adaptation they were making, and the implications for intervention are discussed.

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