Childhood Trauma and Brain Development Shauntina Leach Sleach4@capellauniversity.edu Capella University SWK 5003: Human Behavior and the Social Environment Professor: Dr. Aileen McCabe-Maucher. March 10, 2024 Introduction Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) greatly affect a person's overall well-being and can pose substantial difficulties in adulthood. This paper focuses on a case study retrieved from the book "The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog," by Bruce D. Perry and Maia Szalavitz, with a specific focus on Chapter One: "Tina's World." The chapter depicts the encounter between a child psychiatrist and his initial child patient, Tina, a seven-year-old girl who has had significant abuse in her past. Tina's distressing history, characterized …show more content…
Tina's experience of being abused by her babysitter's teenage child and the resulting behavioural difficulties at school has most certainly had significant impacts on her growth and overall welfare. Analyzing the repercussions of these ACEs from a trauma-informed perspective can assist the social worker in devising interventions that target Tina's trauma symptoms and facilitate the process of healing. Culturally Responsive Interventions When creating a culturally responsive intervention for Tina, it is important to take into account her distinct history, beliefs, and values. Utilizing culturally sensitive methods, such as story therapy or trauma-informed treatment that is specifically adapted to Tina's cultural background, can improve the efficacy of therapies, and assist in her process of recovery. To ensure that interventions are relevant, respectful, and empowering for Tina, the Social Worker should incorporate her cultural identity and experiences into the assessment process. Evaluating Tina's Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), comprehending their impact, and creating culturally sensitive treatments are vital measures in aiding her recovery and restoration. By employing empathy, cultural sensitivity, and a trauma-informed …show more content…
Tina can benefit from TF-CBT as an effective intervention to treat the trauma she experienced from being sexually abused by her babysitter's son, as well as the behavioral difficulties she encounters at school. The therapy aims to facilitate Tina's comprehension of the interrelationships among her ideas, emotions, and actions associated with the trauma. Additionally, it instructs her in the acquisition of coping mechanisms to effectively regulate uncomfortable emotions and memories. To create a culturally responsive adaptation of TF-CBT for Tina, it would be necessary to incorporate her cultural heritage, beliefs, and values into the therapeutic process. The Social Worker will engage in a collaborative effort with Tina and her family to comprehend the ways in which her cultural identity impacts her encounters with trauma and the process of recovery. To establish a secure and encouraging therapeutic setting that acknowledges and affirms Tina's cultural heritage, the Social Worker must include
Precious’ mother and father were extremely abusive towards her and now at the age of sixteen, it’s Precious’ best interest not to interact with either parent. Precious’ mother blamed Precious for the sexual abuse she experienced and one may assume that during a session she would express her thoughts. This exchange can cause a regression in treatment success and can produce negative outcomes of the treatment (Yasinski et al., 2016). TF-CBT explains that treatment can be just as successful with or without parent involvement. Due to the severity of Precious’ trauma, it has become difficult for her to open up to new people. It can extremely difficult for an individual to be put in a situation that forces them to actively think about their traumatic experience, causing them to retract from going to session and completing the therapy (Pukay-Martin, Torbit, Landy, Macdonald, & Monson, 2017). I think that the fact that TF-CBT includes many sessions, Precious will have time to build rapport with her clinician instead of just jumping right into discussing and reliving everything she went through. This treatment will not only benefit Precious but it will also help her children. A component of this treatment is teaching parent skills. Precious was never taught how to be a good mother; she did not have a good example of what parents
“How may the client’s demographics and family relationships facilitate interventions and client goals?” This is a micro issue that takes in account the worker’s ability to utilize practice skills in developing an empathetic understanding of the client’s cultural uniqueness. From a strength based perspective, the social worker can draw on the client’s family and cultural attributes to collaboratively identify multiple interventions tailored to suit their cultural identity. This issue relates to the competency of Engaging with Individuals and Families through use of empathetic and interpersonal
It is important to include cultural issues in the helping process to be more effective. We also need cultural competence because the U.S. is becoming more diverse. Therefore with diversity comes different beliefs, norms, and values. Eurocentric values dominate sciences and began cultural universals which puts the clash of dominate and non-dominate cultural behaviors in motion. In 1996 the NASW Code of Ethics increased the recognition of cultural competence. It is important to know diversity exist within ethnic and cultural groups because social workers need to know that relationships between helping professionals and clients may be strained. This happens because of the distrust between groups. Another important aspect is that the professional realizes their own values, biases, and beliefs. The reason for this is because they must value diversity to start with and understand the dynamics of difference. Culturally competent practitioners have to go through developmental process of using their own culture as a starting point to meet all behaviors. Striving for cultural competence is a long term process of development. The literature on cultural competence is theoretical and conceptual. They have not been evaluated in a systematic way. Roughly there are 2 million Native americans in the U.S. Which survive decimating disease, over-repressed in child welfare system, suffer from health problems, and are among the poorest people in the United States. Working with them clearly falls within the social work clearly mandate to serve vulnerable and oppressed clients. However, we do not know how many people from this group is actually receiving help from social workers. Even though it is important to train social workers to provide care in th...
Rodriguez-Srednicki, Ofelia, and James A. Twaite. Understanding, Assessing, and Treating Adult Victims of Childhood Abuse. Lanham, MD: Jason Aronson, 2006. Print.
Adverse childhood experiences known as the ACE Study, was developed to determine whether childhood events had long-term health consequences, which has important implications for Healthy People 2020 Policy planning, as well as for key social work roles in disease prevention. (Larkin, Felitti, Anda, 2014). Based on the Michael’s case he has experienced six ACEs, child abuse that was both emotional and physical, alcohol abuse, single parent home, working class, and lack of support/closeness with family. Some studies suggest that the experience of four or more ACEs is a threshold above which there is a particular higher risk of negative physical and mental health outcomes. (Sacks, Murphey, Moore, 2014) Early life stress, including neglect and abuse,
Children’s advocate and television personality Fred “Mister Rogers” Rogers (2003) mused, "The purpose of life is to listen--- to yourself, to your neighbor, to your world, and to God and, when the time comes, to respond in as helpful a way as you can find...from within and without." The human need to listen and to respond is at the core of supporting life. Born ready for mutual connection and responsiveness, human beings are primed for growth-fostering relationships with significant people in their early lives (Jordan, 2010). As social creatures, survival has been contingent upon the ability to connect, bond, and share with and receive from these people (Ludy-Dobson & Perry, 2010). Rooted in emotional accessibility, the brain, and the
Kilrain, Maureen V. “Developmental Trauma Disorder: the Effects of Child Abuse and Neglect.” Clinical Advisor, 29 June 2017, www.clinicaladvisor.com/features/child-maltreatment-and-dtd/article/654653.
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are the extremely traumatic events that take place in an individual’s childhood that negatively affect their future attempts to succeed in life. ACEs include enduring physical and verbal abuse, living in dysfunction and over exposure to violent and criminal behavior. It was determined that children who are in the child welfare system are more likely to suffer ACEs and develop physical and mental health issues as well as engage in risky behavior (Brown & Shillington, 2017); children who suffer ACEs also have lower self-efficacy than other children. In all of the research prior to this study, much of the focus was on the psychological and behavioral outcomes of ACEs and what children were more susceptible to them. The problem that the researchers in this study have identified is that in no prior research has anyone
Trauma is an experience or situation that can be continuous. It is emotionally painful and distressing, and these type of feelings can overwhelm an individual's ability to cope, leaving an individual powerless. Clients should then be provided education on social development, what healthy social development is, what healthy relationships are and begin to practice relationship building. It is imperative that clients with social development issues practice learning to relax, self-soothe, express and manage feelings appropriately while finding closure with their traumatic experiences (Knight, 2015). At a mezzo level social workers can conduct social action by having a therapeutic trauma group counseling and therapeutic recreational activities within a community. A neighborhood that may be high in crime can cause trauma, and the trauma can be recurring stimuli placed on the residents such as violence (experiencing or witnessing), deplorable environmental conditions, gang activity, and much more. Advocacy for policy change, accountability, and enforcement is a macro level action that can take place to address combating childhood trauma for the prevention of poor social development. At the Martin Pollak Project, Inc in Baltimore, MD trauma informed practice is important. The agency has held numerous training on trauma informed practice. The agency has policies geared toward trauma informed practice and discusses the different traumatic experiences that clients may potentially suffer from that is shown in their personal
There are three types of adverse childhood experiences; abuse (physical, emotional, and sexual), neglect (physical and emotional), and household dysfunction (incarceration, mental illness, parental violence, divorce, and substance abuse) (Felitti et al., 1998 and Anda et al., 2006). The majority of brain development occurs during the first few years of life. Although genetics provide the basic blueprint for the brain, one’s experiences lay the foundation for future interactions, health, learning, and
However, the most clear and abundant effect of childhood trauma appeared to be behavioral problems. This was also the issue that often got covered up the most with “he/she is just a bad kid.” Like what was mentioned before, no kid is a bad kid. However, because the behavioral problems are what normally catches everybody’s eyes its normally what is caught first. Then you have the learning and emotional problems. Many people will often say that the child is slow or that they are sensitive, but many times there is so much more to the problem. There is a much larger problem lying in the background that often causes all the rest of the problems and it is not something that can just be brushed away with words like “lazy, slow, and sensitive.” The main problem must be directed head on that way we can potentially stop these negative effects and labeling that come from childhood
Children experience decreased development in the left brain when traumatic events occur (Network, n.d.). Imagine being a child and growing up with these types of events occurring. A traumatic event in a child’s life can cause a child to experience a long lasting negative effect. Life events are happening everywhere and more often in the lives of children (Understanding Child Traumatic Stress, n.d.). Trauma can cause them to do three things. First, they try to see what the danger is and how serious it is. Secondly there are strong emotional and physical reactions. Thirdly they attempt to come up with what to do that can help them with the danger. Traumatic events can cause a child to develop differently, which effects the young child stage,
That neglect and other forms of child maltreatment can also affect early brain development. Children with negative experiences typically have higher levels of the stress hormones of cortisol.
Trauma relates to a type of damage to the mind that comes from a severely distressing event. A traumatic event relates to an experience or repeating events that overwhelmingly precipitated in weeks, months, or decades as one tries to cope with the current situations that can cause negative consequences. People’s general reaction to these events includes intense fear, helplessness or horror. When children experience trauma, they show disorganized or agitative behavior. In addition, the trigger of traumas includes some of the following, harassment, embarrassment, abandonment, abusive relationships, rejection, co-dependence, and many others. Long-term exposure to these events, homelessness, and mild abuse general psychological
One of the most obvious and damaging results of child abuse is death; however, research illustrating the effects on a growing child who has been abused has demonstrated many other lifelong negative factors (Felitti, Anda, Nordenberg, Williamson, Spitz, Edwards, Koss, Marks, 1998). In consonance children who suffer from abuse can show signs of depression, social withdraw, and even violent behavior. As a child grows older, they may suffer from poor physical health, such as high blood pressure, obesity, stress, and psychological disorders and disabilities (Herronkohl, T., Hong, Klika, and Herronkohl, R., 2013). Child abuse and neglect have also been associated with depression, anger disorders, and post-traumatic