Consistent with prior research (e.g. Dong et al., 2004), the three forms of maltreatment were moderately correlated with each other. The results of the multivariate Cholesky model assessing the overlap of factors influencing the three forms of maltreatment must be interpreted cautiously due to the low power to analyze covariation among individual forms of maltreatment. There is suggestive evidence that although children’s genes may affect both physical maltreatment and neglect, the genetic factors that were associated with physical maltreatment did not overlap with those associated with neglect. If replicated, this would suggest that the child behaviors that are evocative of neglect are different from those that are evocative of physical maltreatment. The correlations among the three forms of maltreatment were largely due to common nonshared environmental influences. However, common nonshared environmental influences also might have reflected common measurement errors across different forms of maltreatment.
