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According to the definition o f Meadow (1989), child abuse is defined as treating a child in an unacceptable way in a
given culture at a given time. Major criteria for diagnosis o f physical child abuse include sever, multiple, and
patterned injuries with different stages o f healing. Sometimes, even a single, minor injury may be sufficient to
diagnose physical child abuse based on how much it is unacceptable to that particular culture at a given time.
When single minor trauma is found, the criteria that could be used to decide whether it is unacceptable to the
culture at a given time include; severe pain, severe disfiguration, negligence and lack o f care such as injuries to
main members o f the body,unacceptable punishments such as biting, burning, pinching or tying to an object
and,severe mental trauma such as due to non-sexual genital injuries.
Much information can be gathered from minor injuries and their consequences such as how much o f care was
rendered.
A new criterion to diagnose physical child abuse is introduced using single minor injuries. However, there is no
objective and defined way o f deciding how much the trauma is unacceptable for the culture at a given time.
Therefore, this should be decided by law o f common man, that is, if the ill-treatment o f the child is unacceptable to
a common man in the society
