Developmental trauma disorder

Military personnel experience high trauma load that can change brain circuitry leading to impaired inhibitory control and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Inhibitory control processing may be particularly vulnerable to developmental and interpersonal trauma. This study examines the differential role of cumulative pre-deployment trauma and timing of trauma on inhibitory control using the Go/NoGo paradigm in a military population. The Go/NoGo paradigm was administered to 166 predominately male army combat personnel at pre- and post-deployment...

Anxiety disorders in children and adolescents commonly appear in primary care, and many clinicians will need to guide families on treatment. Our purpose in this article is to give a brief overview of assessment and treatment principles for clinicians who intend to work in primary care. Anxiety and its expression are heavily influenced by children's developmental progression and capabilities. Anxiety disorders have multiple underlying etiologies including temperament and environmental exposure to stressors and trauma...

BACKGROUND: Bullying perpetration and victimization have gained widespread recognition as major public health issues. However, few studies focused on exploring prevalence rates across impairments or chronic health conditions exist in the literature. The primary purpose of this analysis was to provide current estimates of bullying victimization and perpetration among US youth with 24 chronic health conditions. A secondary purpose was to examine associations between the number of chronic health conditions and bullying victimization and perpetration...

Worrisome sexual behavior (WSB) is often described as an outcome specific to child sexual abuse (CSA). Therefore, it is highly relevant to study WSB in relation to sexual abuse, especially in very young children, as it is hard to recognize sexual abuse in children who have limited verbal capacities of disclosing. Over time, literature describing WSB following CSA has gradually broadened. However, a gap remains regarding the long-term development of WSB in children who were sexually abused during infancy or very early childhood...

Childhood maltreatment is associated with wide-ranging psychopathology at all stages of life. In the current study, we investigated whether posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) severity mediated the association between childhood maltreatment and internalizing and externalizing disorders among 262 South African trauma-exposed adolescents (aged 12-18 years). Childhood maltreatment and PTSD symptom severity were assessed using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and the Child PTSD Checklist, respectively. Psychiatric disorders were assessed utilizing the Kiddie-Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia-Present and Lifetime version and were grouped into internalizing or externalizing disorders...

Pregnant women face an increased risk of intimate partner violence (IPV). In addition to the risk of violence faced by women, there is a dual concern for risk of harm to the fetus. Expanding knowledge on childbirth outcomes, other domains of children's development have been examined in recent literature. Yet, there is limited comprehensive knowledge in the area. This scoping review study, informed by ecobiodevelopmental theory, mapped evidence associating prenatal IPV exposure and children's development. We searched eight databases, including PubMed, CINAHL, and ERIC...

Global guidelines emphasize the critical role of responsive caregiving in terms of reducing violence against children and promoting early childhood development. However, there is an absence of global evidence synthesis on the effects of early childhood parenting programs for children with developmental disabilities. This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to investigate the effectiveness of parenting interventions delivered for preschool-age children with developmental disabilities in reducing violence against children, altering violence-related factors, and promoting child development...

The use of animal models of human disease is critical for furthering our understanding of disease mechanisms, for the discovery of novel targets for treatment, and for translational research. This Special Topic entitled "Animal Models of Human Disease" aimed to collect state-of-the-art primary research studies and review articles from international experts and leading groups using animal models to study human diseases. Submissions were welcomed on a wide range of animal models and pathologies, including infectious disease, acute injury, regeneration, cancer, autoimmunity, degenerative and chronic disease...

Early and chronic stress was reported to alter the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis functioning which regulates the secretion of cortisol. Nevertheless, few studies mainly focused on specific study populations (e.g. adolescents, pregnant women, and psychiatric patients), and researched interactive associations of pituitary volumes and single stress markers. The present study used pituitary volumes of two adult general-population cohorts of the Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP-START-2: N = 1026, 54% Men, 30-90 years; SHIP-TREND-0: N = 1868, 53% Men, 21-82 years)...

The aim of the study was to explore the relationship among brain functional activations elicited by an emotional paradigm, clinical scores (PTSD, anxiety, and depression), psychopathic traits, and genetic characteristics (5-HTTLPR) in a group of severely maltreated children compared to a healthy control group before and after the implementation of a Trauma Focused-Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. The final sample consisted of an experimental group of 14 maltreated children (mean age = 8.77 years old, S...

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are social determinants of health that increase morbidity and mortality and are prevalent among juvenile justice-involved (JJI) youth. ACEs drive health-risk behaviors (e.g., substance use) that reflect maladaptive coping, increase arrest risk, and overlap with posttraumatic risk-seeking theoretically and reckless/self-destructive behaviors diagnostically. However, little is known, especially among girls, about cumulative developmental adversity burden distress (i.e., total cumulative/lifespan stressor reactivity, grief-specific and adversity-related symptoms, and adversity-driven maladaptive coping strategies by age 18) and associated health risk impacts...

Refugee children are often exposed to substantial trauma, placing them at increased risk for mental illness. However, this risk can be mitigated by a capacity for resilience, conferred from multiple ecological systems (e.g., family, community), including at an individual biological level. We examined the ability of hair cortisol concentrations and polygenic scores for mental health to predict risk and resilience in a sample of Syrian refugee children ( n = 1359). Children were categorized as either at-risk or resilient depending on clinical thresholds for posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and externalizing behavior problems...

Maltreatment survivors may be at risk for parenting challenges, although the previous literature is inconsistent, has focused on individual maltreatment forms, and has overlooked posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and other trauma exposure. The current study, thus, aimed to expand this research in four key ways by (a) examining all five maltreatment forms; (b) controlling for other nonmaltreatment trauma exposure to better isolate the role of maltreatment; (c) investigating maltreatment types and PTSS simultaneously; and (d) exploring novel parenting factors, specifically four types of parenting beliefs and developmental knowledge...

Mental health disparities in transgender and gender diverse (TGD) youth are well-documented. These disparities are often studied in the context of minority stress theory, and most of this research focuses on experiences of trauma and discrimination TGD youth experience after coming out. However, TGD youth may be targets of violence and victimization due to perceived gender nonconformity before coming out. In this Future Directions, we integrate research on attachment, developmental trauma, and effects of racism and homophobia on mental health to propose a social-affective developmental framework for TGD youth...

INTRODUCTION: The high level of emotional problems in youths placed in foster care contrasts with the limited use of evidence-based treatments. This study aims to better characterize the clinical features and therapeutic outcomes of foster care youths with mood disorders. METHODS: A secondary analysis of data collected in the context of a French-Canadian clinical research network on pediatric mood disorders in four sites was conducted to compare three groups of patients with depressive or bipolar disorder: those without exposure to child welfare intervention (WCWI, n  = 181), those who received non-placement psychosocial intervention (NPI, n  = 62), and those in placement interventions (PI, n  = 41)...

Circadian rhythm disturbances, especially circadian phase delays are associated with impulsive behaviors and have been implicated in psychiatric disorders. Chronotype is a developmentally regulated proxy measure of circadian phase. Past studies have investigated the relationship between chronotype and trauma and found that trauma is associated with evening chronotypes, suggesting the course of chronotype development may be affected by adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). However, the relationships among chronotype, impulsivity and ACEs have largely been studied in a pairwise manner using small, cross-sectional cohorts...

Emmanuel is a 6.5-year-old boy who was referred to your evaluation clinic for concerns about his social skills and communication. He arrived in the United States (US) 1 year ago after an immigration trajectory that began in Haiti when he was aged 3 years; passed through Mexico, where the family was in various shelters for over a year; and concluded 2 years later, with the family eventually settling in an urban center in the northeastern United States. While in Mexico, the family was living in a camp without access to utilities...

The spine is often difficult to evaluate clinically in children, increasing the importance of diagnostic imaging to detect a wide variety of spinal disorders ranging from congenital abnormalities to severe infections. Clinical history and physical examination can help determine whether imaging is needed and which imaging technique would be best. The most common cause for back pain, even in children, is muscular strain/spasm that does not require any imaging. However, red flags such as pain at age < 5 years, constant pain, night pain, radicular pain, pain lasting > 4 weeks, or an abnormal neurologic examination may require further investigation...

The documentation of psychological trauma is obviously a challenge to clinicians while they are diving deep into remote events related to their clients or patients. The potential role of psychological trauma in the early developmental stages, and even the existence of adverse childhood experiences, is important to prove, yet it is difficult to do so. A diverse range of methods have been applied, all of which presumably benchmark a big therapeutic step; however, these enthusiastic methods frequently do not last for long...

In terms of object relations theory, borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by a structural abnormality of identity, conflicting representations of self and others, and disorganization of attachment - a construct rooted in an individual's early experiences and central to the relationships established later in life. A special role in the formation of attachment style is attributed to the relationship with the caregiver and to difficult experiences or traumas from early developmental stages. These experiences not only provide the psychological basis for the development of an insecure attachment style, but also leave a biological mark in the body in the form of epigenetic modifications...