Sticks, Stones, and Hurtful Words: Relative Effects of Various Forms of Childhood Maltreatment

Key Points

• To assess the relative consequences of different forms of childhood maltreatment, focusing on the potency of parental verbal aggression and cumulative exposure to multiple types of abuse.
• Assessed the comparative impacts of various types of childhood maltreatment.
• Evaluated the effect sizes associated with isolated exposure versus co-occurring exposure to multiple abuse modalities.
• Parental verbal aggression demonstrated potent and harmful maltreatment effects.
• Exposure to multiple types of abuse yielded very large effect sizes, indicating that the total number of distinct abuse types is a critical determining factor.