We often think about child abuse in terms of physical violence: hitting, kicking, punching. But words can also hurt. Verbal aggression toward children effects their language development in ways which can limit their academic success.

Language is the symbolic representation of experience. Its acquisition allows children to reflect on their experiences and express their opinions and preferences. Developing a vocabulary for self expression requires shaping and reinforcement from parents and teachers. It requires patience and a willingness to label objects and elaborate on concepts throughout the course of daily activities.

Frequent experiences of being reprimanded or made fun of inhibits children's desire to ask questions. They become silent observers who draw their own conclusions about the world around them. Often, these conclusions are inaccurate, but verbally aggressive parents and teachers offer few opportunities for feedback and self correction

Threats of ridicule also inhibits spontaneous speech in children. In the absence of opportunities for verbal self expression, they may resort to "acting out" behaviors to draw attention to themselves. Or they may simply withdraw. In both cases they fail to develop a clear sense of who they are and the impact they can have on the world around them.

Language acquisition requires the supportive context of patient, caring adults. In its absence, children fail to develop the expressive and receptive skills they need to be successful learners.

What prompted you to write the article?

Dr. Craig: In 1986 I was working with children who were abused, and I became interested in the effects of abuse on how they learned and how they processed information.

In what situations were you working with these children?

Dr. Craig: In public schools primarily, in addition to doing some consultation to private programs.

What kind of research did you have to do for the article?

Dr. Craig: I did a research design that involved 55 families. Half were families with children coded "emotionally disturbed"; the other half were families with no coded children. I tested each of the children on different measures of achievement and different kinds of processing problems. The study involved an analysis of both the survey information and the cognitive profiles of the two samples of children.

What was the response to your findings?

Dr. Craig: I submitted the article several times to different publications, but no one seemed to want to deal with the problem. I'm not sure why it took so long  perhaps people didn't want to think about kids who were abused and the impact it has on them. These kids are also not "special ed" kids or "typical" kids; they sort of slip through the cracks, and it was difficult finding an audience to be concerned about their situation.

Has there been any movement since 1986 to address the educational problems of abused children?

Dr. Craig: My sense of the situation is that the people are not really looking at the cognitive aspect of that experience. They're trying hard to get people not to be violent with one another, not to get into patterns of violent behavior, but I'm not sure that people have gone very far in accepting the impact of that experience on learning.

Why do you think that is?

Dr. Craig: Partly it's because the symptoms look the same as other things. It's also a pretty diffuse profile, a combination of a lot of "soft" signs as opposed to something more concrete. The impact of violence is often felt long before there are visible signs of injury, and a lot of work in the area has focused on building profiles of perpetrators rather than understanding violence's impact on its victims.

But hasn't the problem of abused children gotten so large it can't be avoided?

Dr. Craig: I think one of the problems for schools around that population of kids is that they begin to attribute a lot of "volitional intent" to the children and thus relegate the problem to behavioral issues. What they should be doing is trying to see the children through a different cognitive profile that explains how the abuse really inhibits the child's ability to process information the way we'd expect and like them to process it.

What would you like to see done?

COGNITIVE AND SOCIAL DYSFUNCTIONS

Living with violence can impair three important cognitive processes: making order out of life's experiences, establishing cause-and-effect relationships, and developing self-awareness.

For example, children raised in abusive households lack the safe routines that help them make sense out of their lives. Things always feel chaotic. They believe they have little control over their world Ñ that they cannot "cause an effect." This sense of powerlessness eventually turns into fear Ñ of people, of strange places, of taking risks. The "other" is always a threat; consequently, they never trust their own needs can be met by others.

This may result in behavior in the classroom that, on the surface, may look like inattention or "acting out." In fact, the children are perhaps overattentive Ñ but to the wrong agenda. They are trying to interpret the teacher's mood to anticipate how to act Ñ instead of concentrating on the lesson. Or the children may initiate a power contest with the teacher because they will only feel safe when they control the environment. They perceive surprises or spontaneous events as dangerous because such events are not in their control.

Language is another tactic abused children use to keep other people at arm's length. Consequently, these children have a hard time understanding what other people are saying because they focus so much on how they are saying it Ñ does the tone indicate danger? Can they trust the words? This kind of "hearing but not listening" makes it hard for them to have normal, social interaction with their peers. In fact, it makes any social interaction, such as recess or team sports or answering a question in class, a minefield of potentially deadly failure, which must be avoided at all costs.

EDUCATIONAL INTERVENTION

The behavior of abused children, then, can resemble a learned passivity. For the children, life happens to them rather than being something they can control. Before abused children can be expected to succeed in school, with its stress on individual responsibility for learning, they must be taught to believe they can affect the world around them.

Instructing these children requires teachers to prepare lessons that build in consistency, predictability, safety, and a sense of purpose. Lessons might begin with anticipatory rituals that allow these children to "scope out" the situation to make sure it is safe. Another strategy might encourage taking turns where a wrong choice will not automatically mean punishment.

In short, teachers must develop lessons and environments that bring these children out from the behind the barricades they have built to protect themselves. Only then will they feel safe enough to take on roles and attitudes not available at home and see themselves reflected in the world around them.

CONCLUSION

Fourteen percent of children between the ages of 3 and 17 experience family violence. Teachers need to learn strategies that will help them cope with the educational challenges presented by abused children. Teachers can more successfully teach children who live with violence by establishing educational environments that answer their needs