Cognitive profile of maltreated children on the course of compulsory education: Cross-sectional analyses of the WISC-III on the basis of school ages

Abstract

The goal of this study was to delineate development on cognitive profile in maltreated children. The final sample included in 493 children who were school-aged in compulsory education. Both maltreated (n=195) and comparison (n=298) were classified into three groups on the basis of school ages: lower grades of primary school, n=125, higher grades, n=164, junior high school students, n=204. From the focus of latent variables, multi-group analyses examined factor structures on the WISC-III and revealed some intellectual characteristics of the maltreated. Furthermore, cluster analyses divided into sub-groups within each school age; representative patterns were described on the basis of index scores. The present findings were discussed on the perspective of intellectual development. The author concludes that the findings may contribute to the body of literatures on the development of maltreated children, in spite of methodological limitation with regard to cross-sectional analysis.