A finds that children with disabilities are at about four times the risk of becoming victims of violence compared with children who don鈥檛 have disabilities.
The authors said that while it鈥檚 been the belief that children with disabilities are at greater risk of violence, this study is the first to quantify the prevalence and magnitude of that risk.
I鈥檝e written about how students with disabilities than their peers. And some especially disheartening stories have crossed my desk. But I鈥檝e never seen these numbers aggregated before in this way.
The study, published Wednesday in the online version of The Lancet, reviewed dozens of other studies on the issue from around the world. Pooling the results from studies that met their standards, researchers found that 26.7 percent of children with disabilities have been exposed to some kind of violence during their lives. Violence was defined as physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, or neglect. About 20 percent had experienced physical violence and nearly 14 percent had been victims of sexual violence.
The review, funded by the , found that children with mental or intellectual disabilities have a higher risk of sexual violence than both children with other disabilities and children without special needs.
The study says about 5 percent of children worldwide, or about 93 million children, have a moderate or severe disability. While the researchers looked at studies from around the globe, they said not nearly enough were of children in non-English-speaking countries.