This article is a review of approaches developed in scientific research to understand the effects of abuse in childhood and adolescent life, especially on cognitive, emotional and behavioural functioning. The article begins returning to the social relevance of this issue in our environment, and then address the methodological and research challenges have been own global and local level, this type of study. Next, the article takes the need for vision from the development and ecological point of

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... iew, to allow studying the psychological effects of abuse. Finally, the article focuses on recapitulate what are the main types of abuse that have been studied today, and why it is necessary to understand them from a development perspective, it is contextualized, and to resume the progress made by the studies neuro-scientific.