A review of the factors contributing to parental physical abuse of children with handicaps is presented following a brief overview of the general pyitbtem of child abuse in the United States. Parental child abuse was found to be a response to an interaction of variables within the parent, child, and envimnment. These variables were found to be associated with many characteristics of families who had children with handicaps. Also, characteristics of abused children were faund to be similar to characteristics of many children with handicaps. Finally, children with handicaps were faund to be at considerable risk for abuse and, in fact, were dispmpoortionately represented in child abuse samples. Intervention methods and imp lications far educators are also discussed.
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