Adverse Childhood Experiences: What they are, how they effect children and what we can do

In 2012, I had the pleasure of listening to author Paul Tough discuss aspects of his new book, How Children Succeed, to an engaged and packed auditorium at The University of Toronto Schools.  There are longer videos of Paul discussing his book but this is a nice summary of it.



In the book he introduced the idea of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE).  According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in Atlanta Georgia, ACE are "events in childhood, like abuse and neglect, that can increase risk for future problems, but they don't have to" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gm-lNpzU4g).

Here is a visual representation of how ACE can work.  This image comes from the CDC-Kaiser Permanente-Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study:

https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/about.html

I am providing this background information to introduce a segment from the CBC program, Quirks and Quarks.  Host Bob McDonald spoke to a couple of guests about the recent practice of the US government of separating children from their parents at the border with Mexico.  A lot of people may have seen the horrific scenes of the children being housed in temporary "homes."

The discussion explores the concept of ACE and how it relates to brain development and how it may influence DNA.  I only listened to the show once and will have to go back to process it on another level.  Here is a link to the story:

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/june-23-lasting-effects-of-trauma-in-children-s-brains-and-catching-criminals-with-bacterial-fingerprints-1.4715604

The CDC video, along with the Quirks and Quarks episode, offer up some suggestions for countering the effects of ACE.  I would not want to leave this post on an entirely pessimistic note: