The goal of the current study was to quantify genetic and environmental influences on children’s experience of maltreatment and to assess the extent to which these influences are common or specific to different forms of maltreatment. The results of these analyses must be interpreted in light of the fact that maltreatment, unlike many other variables studied with these methods, often reflects an interaction between two genetically related people - parents and children. Therefore, both the children’s and caregivers’ genes may influence maltreatment. Additive genetic influences (A) on maltreatment in this child-based design suggest evidence for the effect of children’s genes on maltreatment. Throughout this paper, this effect has been referred to interchangeably as genetically-driven child effects or non-passive gene-environment correlation. Shared environmental influences (C) or twin environmental (T) influences include the effects of passive gene-environment correlation and/or true environmental effects. As noted in the introduction, it is not possible to distinguish between these two influences in a twin study. Therefore, tests of nonshared environmental influences (E) on maltreatment provide the only true tests of environmental influences on childhood maltreatment, though
