School performance trajectories after the advent of reported maltreatment

Recent research has concluded that maltreatment is associated with poor school performance but has inadequately investigated the relationship over time. This study used a fixed-effects method to model the trajectories of grade point average and absenteeism for 715 school-age children, who were part of a random sample of children reported as maltreated. Trajectories are characterized by the direction and rate of change and whether the rate is constant, increasing, or decreasing. The analysis demonstrated a worse maltreatment effect on absenteeism than on grades, especially immediately after the first report. For both outcomes, the adverse impact cumulated with time. Child Protective Services’ response after substantiating the report appears to have blunted the impact of maltreatment on grades, though not on absenteeism.