Clinicians assessing children with autism are sometimes faced with a dilemma, especially if there is a definite or suspected history of abuse or neglect: is this autism or attachment disorder? This is important because the attachment disorders (reactive attachment disorder and disinhibited social engagement disorder) are thought to be caused by abuse or neglect, whereas autism is not. We discuss the Coventry Grid, a clinical tool aiming to aid differentiation between autism and attachment disorders. We examine the small body of empirical studies focusing on this differential diagnosis and find that the Coventry Grid can be regarded as an evidence-based tool. We also discuss preliminary findings regarding a relatively unstructured observational method involving two assessors who engage the child in jokes and playful social dilemmas, which might help clinicians elicit the information required to complete the Coventry Grid.

Waters, Ruiz, and Roisman (2017) recently published evidence based on the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation (MLSRA) that sensitive caregiving during childhood is associated with higher levels of secure base script knowledge during the Adult Attachment Interview (AAIsbs). At present, however, little is known about the role of variation in atypical caregiving, including abuse and/or neglect, in explaining individual differences in AAIsbs. This study revisited data from the MLSRA (N = 157) to examine the association between experiencing abuse and/or neglect in the first 17.5 years of life and secure base script knowledge measured at ages 19 and 26 years. Several aspects of abuse and/or neglect experiences were assessed, including perpetrator identity, timing, and type. Regressions revealed that childhood abuse and/or neglect was robustly associated with lower AAIsbs scores in young adulthood, above and beyond previously documented associations with maternal sensitivity and demographic covariates. Follow-up analyses provided evidence that the predictive significance of abuse for secure base script knowledge was specific to perpetration by parental figures, rather than non-caregivers. Exploratory analyses indicated that abuse and/or neglect: (a) in middle childhood and adolescence (but not infancy and early childhood) and (b) physical abuse (but not sexual abuse or neglect) were uniquely associated with lower AAIsbs scores.

Elder abuse is a social phenomenon which has recently been brought to light. As such it has brought about different legal responses in the Canadian provinces. The Atlantic provinces have all enacted Adult protection legislation modelled on child protection legislation. The author has undertaken a study of New Brunswick legislation in order to evaluate which factors are most important when judges order protective measures. Different materials have been analysed such as New Brunswick court files from 1983 to 1989, cases which have never gone to court collected by nurses and social workers, interviews with social workers, and the normal practice of New Brunswick judges and crown prosecutors. From those data, it was found that two different factors play an important role in the administration of Adult protection legislation. First, the legal representation of the elderly person is the most significant factor influencing the outcome of the case. The other important factor is the legal philosophy espoused by the relevant judges. Judges adopting a liberal philosophy are more critical of that legislation as compared with judges who accept the social intervention philosophy which forms the basis of this legislation.