ACE (not the hardware store) Turns 20 –
March 28, 2018 – by Tian Dayton, Ph.D. Adverse Childhood research has been around for a while but recently it has moved front and center in the conversation on childhood trauma. Thanks to people like Dr. Robert Anda co-principal investigator of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) research and Oprah Winfrey, adverse childhood experiences as a direct cause of developmental and health problems later in life, are getting the attention that they deserve. As someone who works with relational trauma, I deal with the effects of these forms of abuse or neglect that are all too often at the hands of those we love and need for our very survival as children … With the first publication from the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study, published in 1998, we looked broadly at 10 categories of childhood adversity, including abuse, neglect and family dysfunction. We asked about emotional, physical and sexual abuse, growing up in a home where there was substance abuse, having a family member who was in prison or who had a mental illness, and having parents who were separated or divorced.
6 min clip from Dr. Anda defining ACE’s
