LOGICAL FORMAL REPRESENTATION OF OVERLAPPING SIGNS OF CHILD MALTREATMENT: A RAPID LITERATURE REVIEW

The absence of a logical formal representation of the overlapping signs of child abuse (CA) is a knowledge gap that affects identification, evaluation, and intervention processes in different fields of knowledge, especially forensic and clinical. This study aimed to analyze through a literature review to what extent the signs and symptoms of the different types of CA present co-occurrence and overlap (intersection) between them; what is exposed as an input to propose a logical formal representation. To do this, a quick literature review of the scientific production published on the co-occurrence of signs in the different modalities of child abuse is carried out. Twenty-six articles published from 2017 to October 2022 were systematized. The results show the challenges that professionals have in the evaluation processes and the establishment of the causal link, given that sharing the signs between different types of CA could generate false positives and false negatives; therefore, caution must be exercised when establishing relationships between psychological and behavioral manifestations and MI hypotheses. Finally, a logical formal representation of the superposition of signs is proposed and with it, empirical evidence to the frame of reference.