Does anyone know of research or data on ACE occurrence and age? For example, at what ages might a child be more at risk for experiencing a specific ACE, such as sexual abuse. I'm wondering about data on this to support appropriate prevention programming if we know when children may be more at risk based on age vs. the 0-18 year old ACE data.
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I would bet local and national data on foster youth would cover some of this. You might begin there. But also look at what is happening neurodevelopmentally at the age the ACE happens! That's a key part of 'what age?' Because it tells you what systems have been particularly damaged.
Thank you! Any information or idea are helpful! More responses from other members are welcomed!
Hi Lacie,
A journal article was recently published called "Early Adversity and Critical Periods: Neurodevelopmental Consequences of Violating the Expectable Environment." Here's the abstract:
It is now widely recognized that children exposed to adverse life events in the
first years of life are at increased risk for a variety of neural, behavioral, and
psychological sequelae. As we discuss in this paper, adverse events represent
a violation of the expectable environment. If such violations occur during a critical
period of brain development, the detrimental effects of early adversity are
likely to be long lasting. Here we discuss the various ways adversity becomes
neurobiologically embedded, and how the timing of such adversity plays an
important role in determining outcomes. We conclude our paper by offering
recommendations for how to elucidate the neural mechanisms responsible for
the behavioral sequelae and how best to model the effects of early adversity.
I think this paper directly addresses your question from a theoretical perspective. If you don't have access to the full paper, you can email me at info at suziegruber dot com and I can send it to you.
--Suzie
This is a great paper...
It really suggests that the folks who demand putting kids in chalk squares and face masks will be seriously and permanently impacting child social emotional development by damaging expected inputs during sensitive and critical developmental periods.
