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Developmental Patterns of Adverse Childhood Experiences and Current Symptoms and Impairment in Youth Referred For Trauma-Specific Services

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Abstract

By the time children reach adolescence, most have experienced at least one type of severe adversity and many have been exposed to multiple types. However, whether patterns of adverse childhood experiences are consistent or change across developmental epochs in childhood is not known. Retrospective reports of adverse potentially traumatic childhood experiences in 3 distinct developmental epochs (early childhood, 0- to 5-years-old; middle childhood, 6- to 12-years-old; and adolescence, 13- to 18-years-old) were obtained from adolescents (N = 3485) referred to providers in the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) for trauma-focused assessment and treatment. Results from latent class analysis (LCA) revealed increasingly complex patterns of adverse/traumatic experiences in middle childhood and adolescence compared to early childhood. Depending upon the specific developmental epoch assessed, different patterns of adverse/traumatic experiences were associated with gender and with adolescent psychopathology (e.g., internalizing/externalizing behavior problems), and juvenile justice involvement. A multiply exposed subgroup that had severe problems in adolescence was evident in each of the 3 epochs, but their specific types of adverse/traumatic experiences differed depending upon the developmental epoch. Implications for research and clinical practice are identified.

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Acknowledgments

This manuscript was developed (in part) under grant number 2U79SM054284 from the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The views, policies, and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of SAMHSA or HHS. We would like to acknowledge the 56 sites within the NCTSN that have contributed data to the Core Data Set as well as the children and families that have contributed to our growing understanding of child traumatic stress. We also acknowledge Dr. Ernestine Briggs, Director of the Data and Evaluation Program at the NCTSN, for her thoughtful edits and assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, University of Connecticut School of Medicine, 263 Farmington Avenue, Farmington, CT, 06030, USA

    Damion J. Grasso & Julian D. Ford

  2. School of Criminal Justice and Criminalistics, California State University, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Carly B. Dierkhising

  3. Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Christopher E. Branson

  4. UCLA- Duke University National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA

    Robert Lee

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  1. Damion J. Grasso
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Correspondence to Damion J. Grasso.

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Grasso, D.J., Dierkhising, C.B., Branson, C.E. et al. Developmental Patterns of Adverse Childhood Experiences and Current Symptoms and Impairment in Youth Referred For Trauma-Specific Services. J Abnorm Child Psychol 44, 871–886 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-015-0086-8

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