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According to the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, child abuse, also known as child maltreatment, is any intentional harm to a minor (an individual under 18 years of age), including actions that harm the child physically, emotionally, sexually, and through neglect. Many children experience more than one form of abuse.
Physical abuse refers to any intentional physical injury to the child, and can include striking, kicking, burning, or biting the child, or any other action that results in a physical impairment of the child.
Sexual abuse, more common among older children, refers to engaging in any sexual activity, coerced or persuaded, with a child. It also includes inappropriate touching or comments.
Neglect occurs when a child is deprived of adequate food, clothing, shelter, or medical care.
The physical effects of physical maltreatment are immediate, ranging from bruises to broken bones to internal bleeding and more. Some physical effects are long lasting. Child abuse can impair brain development and functioning through physical damage, such as that caused by shaking an infant. Physical harm and prolonged stress can alter the course of brain development, increasing the child's risk for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), emotional regulation problems, conduct disorder, and learning and memory difficulties.
Maltreated children may display symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an anxiety disorder that occurs after experiencing a traumatic event and includes flashbacks, nightmares, and feelings of helplessness.
It follows that child maltreatment and its neurological and emotional consequences may negatively affect cognitive development. Preschool children who are abused score lower on measures of school readiness and problem solving. Children who are abused experience difficulty understanding and completing day-to-day schoolwork and demonstrate serious learning difficulties, often resulting in academic failure. Teachers report maltreated children as inattentive, uninvolved, passive, and angry, as well as lacking in creativity, initiative, persistence, and confidence.
The socioemotional effects of child maltreatment are especially daunting and long lasting. Young children who are abused tend to have poor coping skills, low self-esteem, and difficulty regulating their emotions and impulses, and to show more negative affect, such as anger and frustration, and less positive affect than other children. They tend to have difficulty understanding their own and other people's emotions and often have difficulty making and maintaining friendships.
Children and adolescents who are abused also are at risk for a range of psychological disorders. These include anxiety, eating, and depressive disorders as well as behavioral problems in adolescence, such as delinquency, teen pregnancy, illicit drug use, and risk behavior.

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