Child Abuse Potential and Maternal Perceptions of Infant Temperament Melissa D. Swartzmiller, Katherine L. Guyon, and Alissa C. Huth-Bocks Eastern Michigan University Child maltreatment is pervasive and has many negative implications for its victims who are most likely to be young children under the age of four years, girls, and multi-racial children. Parents, especially mothers, are often perpetrators of child maltreatment (United States Department of Health and Human Services, 2007). There is conflicting data in the extant literature on possible causes and effects of child abuse and child abuse potential. For example, it has been well established that a number of psychosocial risks predict child abuse potential, such as social support, first-time parenting, and infant temperament (Dukewich, Borkowski, & Whitman, 1996). On the other hand, the social informational processing model of child abuse holds that abusive parents are more likely to have inaccurate, distorted, and biased perceptions of their children than non-abusive parents (Milner, 1993, 2000). Although many studies focus on temperament as a predictor of abuse, few studies have examined how mothers with higher child abuse potential perceive their infants’ temperament. Research Aim:  To explore the influence of maternal child abuse potential on perceptions of infant temperament. Participants 120 women followed from pregnancy through the first few years of their infants’ life. Mothers’ age range: 18-42, M = % African–American, 36% Caucasian, 13% Biracial, 4% Other. 64% single/never married, 28% married, 4% divorced, 4% separated. 20% had a high school diploma or less, 44% some college, 36% college degree Median monthly household income = $ % receive services from WIC, and 90% have public health insurance METHOD, Continued Procedures Pregnant women were recruited through the posting of flyers in pregnancy agencies and area community organizations. The first interview took place during the third trimester of pregnancy (T1), and a second interview was conducted 3-months post-partum (T2). Measures assessed at T1 Child Abuse Potential. The Brief Child Abuse Potential Inventory (BCAP; Ondersma, S.J., Chaffin, M.J., Mullins, S.M., & LeBreton, J.M.) is a 33-item self-report that assesses the potentiality for child abuse. The measure is composed of 7 subscales and one validity scale. The happiness (alpha =.86), persecution (alpha =.76), lonliness (.89), family conflict (alpha =.78) rigidity (alpha =.62), distress (alpha =.74), and poverty (alpha = 48) subscales can be summed to equal a total score of abuse risk (total alpha =.81). Measures assessed at T2 Maternal Perceptions of Infant Temperament. The Infant Characteristics Questionnaire (ICQ; Bates, Freeland, & Lounsberry, 1979) is a 24-item parent report assessing perceptions of infant temperament. The 15-items comprising the fussy/difficult, unadaptable, unpredictable, and dull subscales were summed to create an overall score of infant difficultness (alpha =.83). A multiple regression was conducted to determine which aspects of child abuse potential would predict perceptions of infant difficultness; results were not significant. No aspects of abuse potential predicted perceptions of infant difficultness in our sample. Similarly, the total score for abuse potential was also found to be not significant in predicting infant difficultness. When selecting for cases of first time mothers, however, a multiple regression analysis found the persecution scale to significantly predict 13% of the variance in perceptions of infant difficultness. When using the enter method, all seven BCAP subscales significantly accounted for a combined 25% of the variance in child difficultness among first time mothers. While the persecution scale was the only subscale found to predict a significant amount of variance in maternal perceptions of infant difficultness among first time mothers, we believe this to be a unique characteristic of our high-risk sample. Perhaps women who score higher on the persecution scale may feel they are being evaluated negatively by the interviewer. Therefore, they may rate their infant as being less difficult in order to align with what they feel is a more socially acceptable response Perhaps first-time mothers tend to internalize infant difficultness as a result of their own uncertainties about their parenting skills Future studies should be conducted using high-risk populations, as these individuals are under-represented in the current body of literature. Experiences as a first-time mother may be important for determining child abuse potential and how a mother perceives her child. Overall, these results suggest that, among first time mothers, perceptions of infant temperament at 3-months postpartum can be partially predicted by child abuse potential measure during pregnancy. Although maternal child abuse potential is not expected to change over time, child abuse potential and infant temperament were assessed at different time periods. We believe this to be a strength of our study because measuring abuse potential before infant temperament allows us to say with some certainty that temperament does not lead to abuse, as the literature has suggested. RESULTSINTRODUCTION METHOD DISCUSSION RR2R2 R 2 Adjusted F changePBβ BCAP subscales (for total sample) p >.05-- BCAP Total (for total sample) p > BCAP Persecution (Among primiparous women) P < BCAP Subscales (Among primiparous women) p =.05-- Table 1 – Regression analysis results