Essay On Child Trauma

Words: 580
Pages: 3

Trauma can be defined as an experienced event that causes distressing feelings, emotions, and behaviors (Ogawa, 2004). Trauma can be caused from witnessing, or experiencing a disturbing event. Such events include war, natural disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes. Additional traumatic events include shootings, physical injury, accidents, neglect and abuse.
Development
The first few years of a Childs life, are by far the most important for development (Green, Crenshaw, & Kolos, 2010). During this time, children are learning of the world that they are live in. This primarily occurs through the stimulation of all five senses during important time periods called critical periods. Critical periods provide an opportunity in which this stimulation must occur for the progression of development. For example, in order for a child to develop language skills, adults must speak to them. This development can be impeded by trauma. Neglect and abuse trauma have a tremendous deteriorating impact on the development of a child. The inhibition of
…show more content…
During infant years, representations of traumatic events are stored in the right side of the brain because they are non-verbal experiences (Green, Crenshaw, & Kolos, 2010). The right side of the brain is heavily used until the age of three because infants have not fully developed language skills. The system that is in charge of this process is the Implicit Emotional Memory System. This system works with the amygdala to embed such memories into the memory system. This is crucial when assessing the amount of damage that trauma has caused a child. Interrestly, there is sufficient research that supports the idea that children who have experienced trauma during the time of birth to age two, convey their experience of trauma through behaviors instead using verbalizations. This supports the concept that the earlier a child experiences trauma, the more damaged that is caused to that