Class 1

Question 1

Findings from challenger study

Answer 1

• Children might be traumatized by events that do not directly affect their personal safety or the safety of their loved ones
• Closeness to the traumatic event plays a role in the severity of symptoms
• Adolescents may have fewer symptoms because they can place the event within a larger context
• Emotional involvement and frequency of exposure play a role in the development of post traumatic symptoms
• Although many children don’t meet full criteria for a psychiatric disorder, they frequently have significant symptoms (“sub-threshold”)

Question 2

2. Major findings from the ACE study (discussed in class and on slides)

Answer 2

-a host of challenging (adverse) childhood events were the most significant predictors of adult ischemic heart disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, skeletal fractures, and liver disease

Question 3

What makes an event traumatic (individual factors and environmental factors (from class discussion and slides)

Answer 3

• pre exposure to traumatic events
• duration of trauma
• whether there was somebody to mitigate the impact of the trauma
• risk alleles/genetic predisposition and damaging environment

Question 4

Definition of trauma and its challenges

Answer 4

-It is usually an uncontrollable event
-The nature of the event is usually beyond the scope of ordinary human experience (usually rare or infrequent)
-It is usually unpredictable in the sense of a sudden event or a sudden change in mood of a violent parent.
-In an effort to process the event, the person is changed.
Challenges:
-Confers a much higher risk for emotional and behavior problems in the present and future
-Disrupts healthy development