PSYC 345 Week 8 DB Forum 6 Example

Discussion Board Forum 6: Thread and Reply

PSYC 345 Exceptional Child, Discussion Board Forum 6 (thread and one reply)

Thread by [Student Name]

The prompt, the composite child and the classmate's post are composites standing in for the course's own forum; the textbook, Scripture and published study are real; the requirements follow Liberty's public course guide for PSYC 345.

Thread

The research that gave us the phrase adverse childhood experiences began not in a child clinic but in a San Diego adult checkup program. Adults who had just been through a routine physical examination there were sent a mailed survey about their early years, and Felitti et al. (1998) analyzed the 9,508 who returned it, roughly seven in ten of those asked. The questions covered seven kinds of early hardship. Three were forms of abuse aimed at the child (emotional, physical and sexual), and four described the home: a mother treated violently, or a parent or other adult in the house who drank or used drugs heavily, lived with mental illness or suicidal thoughts, or went to jail or prison. A little over half of these mostly middle-class, insured adults recalled at least one of the seven, and a quarter recalled two or more.

The most important finding was a graded relationship: the more categories of adversity a person reported, the higher the risk of a long list of adult health behaviors and diseases. Smoking, severe obesity, depression, suicide attempts, alcoholism, heart disease and lung disease all rose step by step with the count, and adults who recalled four or more categories carried far higher odds of several of these outcomes than adults who recalled none. The pattern remained after the researchers adjusted for age, sex, race and education.

Parritz and Troy (2018) help explain why early adversity can echo for decades. Chronic stress in childhood can affect the developing stress response system, emotional regulation and the capacity to trust others, and adversity often comes in clusters, so a child exposed to one form is more likely to face others. Development is cumulative; difficulties in one period make the tasks of the next harder, so a preschooler who never learned to calm down with a caregiver's help enters school less ready to sit, listen and make friends, and the resulting conflicts add new stress of their own.

Consider a composite eleven-year-old, Jayden, now in his third foster home after removal from a parent with addiction and a household marked by violence. He is behind in reading, slow to trust adults and quick to fight at recess. The ACE research suggests he carries real risk, but the course has also shown that risk is not destiny. A stable foster placement, a teacher who stays patient through testing behavior, trauma-informed therapy and a consistent mentor can provide the ordinary protective relationships that resilience research emphasizes.

Isaiah 61:1 describes the Lord's anointed as sent to bind up the brokenhearted (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016). For Christians, children like Jayden are not statistics but people whom God calls the church to heal and protect.

Classmates: what is one thing a school or church could do this year for children carrying several adversities?

Reply to Simone

Simone, you suggested that schools should screen every student for ACEs and assign those with high scores to special support programs. I share your concern for children like Jayden, and early support matters. Still, I would be cautious about using ACE scores this way. Felitti et al. (1998) studied adults recalling their own childhoods and found risk patterns across a large population, but the ACE count was never designed as a screening tool to predict individual outcomes. Two children with the same score may have very different experiences, supports and strengths, and a score can miss adversities the original questionnaire did not include, such as poverty, racism or community violence. The original sample was also mostly white, insured and middle-aged, so its numbers may not describe children growing up today in very different circumstances.

There is also a risk of labeling. Parritz and Troy (2018) emphasize that development unfolds through interactions between risks and protective factors, so a child's story is still being written. A child who learns that adults see him as a high score may begin to see himself the same way. Universal approaches, such as trauma-informed classrooms in which all teachers respond calmly to difficult behavior and build relationships with every student, may help children with adversity without singling them out. Such classrooms also protect children whose hardships no form would ever capture, because the support reaches everyone rather than waiting for a disclosure. A teacher who greets every child at the door, offers a calm corner and responds to outbursts with curiosity instead of punishment is giving Jayden what he needs without announcing why.

None of this means ignoring adversity. Teachers and counselors should know the signs of trauma and refer children for assessment when concerns arise. Matthew 18:10 warns against despising little ones (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016), a reminder that the goal of any screening must be care, not categorization. Would a trauma-informed approach for the whole school address your concern as well as screening would?

References

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., Koss, M. P., & Marks, J. S. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245-258. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0749-3797(98)00017-8

Parritz, R. H., & Troy, M. F. (2018). Disorders of childhood: Development and psychopathology (3rd ed.). Cengage Learning.