What are Adverse Childhood Experiences?
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are traumatic or stressful experiences that can have a huge impact on children at the time and throughout their lives.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are traumatic or stressful experiences that can have a huge impact on children at the time and throughout their lives.
The ten widely recognised ACEs are:
- Physical Abuse
- Verbal Abuse
- Sexual Abuse
- Physical neglect
- Emotional Neglect.
Living in a household where:
- There are adults with alcohol and drug misuse problems
- There are adults with mental health problems
- There is domestic abuse
- There are adults who have spent time in prison
- Parents have separated.
As well as these 10 ACEs there are a range of other types of childhood adversity that can have similar negative long term effects. These include bereavement, bullying, poverty and community adversities such as living in a deprived area, neighbourhood violence etc.
Toxic stress can occur when a child experiences strong, frequent, and/or prolonged adversity—such as physical or emotional abuse, chronic neglect, caregiver substance abuse or mental illness, exposure to violence, and/or the accumulated burdens of family economic hardship—without adequate adult support. This kind of prolonged activation of the stress response systems can disrupt the development of brain architecture and other organ systems, and increase the risk for stress-related disease and cognitive impairment, well into the adult years.
The impact of ACEs
Childhood adversity can create harmful levels of stress which impact healthy brain development. This can result in long-term effects on learning, behaviour and health.
Evidence from ACE surveys in the US, UK and elsewhere demonstrates that ACEs can exert a significant influence throughout people's life.
ACEs have been found to be associated with a range of poorer health and social outcomes in adulthood and that these risks increase as the number of ACEs increase.