Disability Type and Severe Physical Punishment In Vietnam: Evidence from Mics Data

Abstract

Background

Children with disabilities are often considered at higher risk of harsh or violent discipline, yet
disability is not consistently measured in the extant literature in ways that allow meaningful
differentiation by type. Prior research suggests that children with cognitive or behavioral
difficulties, such as challenges with learning, concentrating, or managing emotions, experience
higher rates of school discipline than children with physical or sensory disabilities, including
difficulties with walking, seeing, or hearing (James & Nepomnyaschy, 2025). Vietnam, a
middle-income country with detailed measures of child functioning that allow disability to be
differentiated by type, provides an important context for examining whether disability type
shapes children’s exposure to severe physical punishment. This study examines whether children
with cognitive/behavioral difficulties experience higher levels of severe physical punishment
than children with physical/sensory disabilities.

Methods
We used nationally representative data from Vietnam’s Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys
(MICS), integrating the Child Discipline Module with the Child Functioning Module, which
includes items reported by the child’s caregiver or the head of the household. Children ages 5–14
were categorized into two disability groups: (1) cognitive/behavioral difficulties (remembering,
concentrating, behavior) and (2) physical/sensory difficulties (walking, seeing, hearing). Severe
physical punishment was measured using two items from the MICS Discipline module (hit or
slapped the child on the face, head, or ears; beat the child up as hard as one could). Logistic
regression models estimated the association between disability type and severe physical
punishment, adjusting for child age, sex, household wealth, and urban residence. The analytic
sample included 5,616 children.

Results
Children with cognitive/behavioral difficulties had significantly higher odds of severe physical
punishment compared with children without these difficulties (OR=2.75, p<.001). Children with
physical/sensory difficulties also showed a positive association with severe physical punishment;
however, this association did not reach statistical significance. Girls had significantly lower odds
of severe physical punishment than boys (OR=.59, p<.015), while age and urban residence were
not statistically significant predictors.

Conclusions and Implications
Findings indicate that disability type meaningfully differentiates children’s risk of severe
physical punishment in Vietnam. Children with cognitive/behavioral difficulties were at a
significantly higher risk of experiencing severe physical punishment, whereas physical/sensory
disabilities did not show a clear association with severe physical punishment. Findings highlight
the heightened vulnerability of children with less visible cognitive or behavioral difficulties and
underscore the need for violence-prevention and parenting interventions that explicitly address
the needs of children with disabilities, particularly those whose challenges may be less readily
recognized.