By guest author Dr. Majed Ashy
What are the effects on children of exposure to and experience of violence during their formative years?
Image in public domain.
The last post focused on some of the major forms of violence to which many children in America are exposed. Today’s post focuses on the effects on the developing brain of early experiences with violence.
The brain is an organ that is shaped by experience. Early childhood experiences with abuse or trauma produce a cascade of physiological and neuro-hormonal responses, within the restrictions of our genetic makeup.
These built-in responses are directed at providing maximum adaptation to the environment in which the developing child lives. A harsh and aggressive environment may require heightened levels of vigilance toward early signs of danger.
Research has shown that early experiences of abuse and trauma are associated with:
- Long- lasting alterations in several parts of the brain, including the hippocampus (the center for memories) and the amygdala (involved in arousal, fear, and other emotional responses)
- Irritability in the limbic system (seat of motivations and emotions related to survival, including fear and anger)
- Diminished maturation in the left hemisphere (seat of language and logic)
- Reduction in the size of the corpus callosum, which provides communication between the two sides of the brain.
Such changes have cognitive, emotional, and behavioral consequences that can be adaptive in chronically dangerous environments where impulsive responses such as a fight or flight response are required and there’s not much time to think before acting.
However, what are the dangers of such response patterns in people whose childhood has left them full of anger and hatred?
For further reference: Teicher, M, Samson, J, Tomoda, A., Ashy, M., & Andersen, S (2006) Neurobiological and behavioral consequences of exposure to childhood traumatic stress. In Bengt B. Arnetz and Rolf Ekman (Editors) Stress in health and disease. KGaA, Weinheim WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co.
Majed Ashy, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Merrimack College and a research fellow in psychiatry at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School
My younger sister and I were molested by our father, and our older brother was whipped regularly for wetting his bed. One time he had to stand for hours in our front hall with the wet sheet over his head. Our father was too intimidating a figure for us sisters to question the nightly fondling. We thought this must be something all daddies did.
I was never able to confront my father about his behavior because he died when I was sixteen. The abuse left my sister with permanent paranoia and me with chronic insomnia. We siblings were sorry for our mother when her husband died of a heart attack at fifty-seven, but we didn’t miss him one iota.
What courage you have to share your history of trauma, and what strength you must have to have survived. Thank you so much for your post, Gold Dust Twin.
On the issue of childhood trauma, I want to share with you this 8 minute video from The Real News Network about the psychological impact of Israel’s recent military assault on children. “Operation Pillar of Cloud” was an eight day assault on Gaza by the Israeli military in November 2012.
Thanks for sharing the link to the video, Dahlia. It is very powerful, very disturbing, and very accurate regarding the effects on children of living in a war zone.
Thank you for pointing out, Kathie, that the video demonstrates what living in any war zone can do to children.
Dr. Majed Ashy explains the regions of the brain that are affected by children’s exposure to and experiences of violence during the development of a child’s life. The alterations the brain experiences from abuse and trauma have significant consequences on the rest of the child’s life.
The majority of children who experience reoccurring physical abuse are more prone to developing social interaction problems, cognitive functioning problems involving motivation and intelligence, and emotional problems including suffering from depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. In addition, physically abused children are more likely to externalize their aggression and engage in risk-taking behaviors, such as drug and alcohol use or promiscuity. Children whom have experienced child sexual abuse hold many of the same outcomes, although generally intensified. Depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts and tendencies, violence, aggression, and low self-esteem are all common symptoms to childhood sexual abuse. These children are also more likely to engage in risk-taking behaviors, including drug/alcohol abuse and promiscuity, but also self-mutilation behaviors, such as cutting or experiencing eating disorders.
There are few disparities across different ethnic communities for outcomes of child abuse, mainly because these outcomes stem from general experience, not culturally specific happenings. Latina victims experience the same outcomes of childhood abuse, however they have been found to experience more severity in these outcomes. Furthermore, studies have shown that higher rates of rape and sexual in adulthood are linked to a prior history of child sexual abuse, but this does not hold true for Asian American victims. Overall, the effects of experiencing violence in the developing years of childhood hold steady for most victims, displaying severe outcomes involving social, cognitive, and emotional issues.
Considering the physiological effects of abuse presenting in this post has prompted me to ponder how something as extreme as brain damage can exacerbate the psychological damage also caused by abuse. What is first stated in the post is the damage to the hippocampus and amygdala. When unregulated, either due to damage or an imbalance in cortisol levels, a child can have a much higher risk of developing PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder could severely affect a growing child’s life, especially within the categories of exploration and social development. Fear of re-encountering or fear of anxiety itself could cause the child to withdraw and fail to create positive social relationships. In addition, diminished size in the left hemisphere could account for further impairment in learning and problem solving skills, which has been shown to be a consequence of psychological abuse as well (Hines, Malley-Morrison, 2013). This post also touches on the effects to the limbic system and corpus callosum, which are influence functions such as impulse control, stress and anxiety, and creativity. Psychological abuse or psychological consequences of physical abuse has also been shown to impair all of the aforementioned functions. (Hines, Malley-Morrison, 2013). It seems as though the physical and psychological repercussions of abuse are interwoven and play off each other. I am unsure as to whether an abuse victim can escape with just one of the two major forms of damage. Although from my studies, I would be lead to assume if such cases exist, they are in the minority.
I find this post interesting in that it addresses both child abuse and exposure to intense violence. I think we tend to forget or overlook that many children all over the world witness and suffer horrific acts of violence as a consequence of war, political unrest and other types of conflict every day. We have not experienced those types of violence on a large scale on our own soil in many years. However, this calls to mind the recent rise in school shootings in the US. They seem to increase in severity as the years go on, especially in light of the recent Sandy Hook shootings. I feel sad and concerned for the children who witnessed the shootings and wonder how the event will affect them later in life. It seems obvious that multiple exposures to abuse and violence will have some effect on the brains of children. Yet I am curious if we know whether or not one very serious traumatic event, such as a school shooting, could have the same effect as long-term exposure similar violence.
I also wonder if, with enough research, we could make some conclusions about exposure to intense violence in childhood and the continuation of the same violence in adulthood in places like Israel, Sudan and Syria. Israel and Sudan have experienced multiple generations of conflict so it does not seem a stretch to extend our findings about childhood abuse and negative effects on the brain to multiple generations and perhaps the repeating events occurring in those countries.
It’s interesting to read about the effects on the brain for children with experience and exposure to violence because it shows how much violence can affect a child, even just purely on the physiological level. As this blog post states, early experiences of abuse and trauma are associated with changes in several areas of the brain, which all serve distinct purposes such as memory, arousal, fear, emotional responses, memory, etc. The various effects of violence on the brain seems to effect one’s psychological state as well. This post made me think about the long term outcomes in the different cultures for children with an exposure to and experience of violence because that also demonstrates the great impact child violence has on people, especially on the psychological level. In the Native American culture, the greatest and most consistent long-term outcomes for maltreated Native Children are alcohol abuse and later involvement in abusive intimate relationships (Malley-Morrison & Hines, Family Violence in a Cultural Perspective, p. 91). In addition, maltreated children have higher rates of anxiety, sleep problems, developmental difficulties, conduct disorder, and schizophrenia-like symptoms than found in nonmaltreated Native children (91). In African American culture, the effects of child violence are problems in cognitive functioning, physical health, and sexuality as well as depression and alcohol/drug abuse (Malley-Morrison & Hines, 124). In the Hispanic culture, maltreated children typically have higher negative moods, ineffectiveness, anxiety, worry, physiological symptoms of anxiety, dissociation, and externalizing and internalizing behaviors (Malley-Morrison & Hines 171). Lastly, in Asian American culture, maltreated children are more likely to have anxiety, depression, and thoughts of suicide. Generally, Asian Americans tend to show the effects of child violence through psychological symptoms rather than behavioral symptoms. Simply put, exposure to and experience of child violence are long lasting and they have rather serious effects on children with a majority of the different ethnic groups facing depression or alcohol/drug abuse problems. This makes me wonder how we can intervene on behalf of children who have/are exposed to child violence to prevent them from being depressed and developing drug abuse problems.
A very well-known formula in social psychology is Lewin’s Formula, which states that behavior is a function of the individual and the environment. As children experience the world and their environment, it’s so crucial that they get good doses of love and care from the people around them. This reminds me of a discussion in our Family Violence class about how the United States views itself as a child-centric society, seeing a lot of intrinsic worth in the children of our nation. However, why do we still hear cases and stories of children getting abused, maltreated? As I read through all the posts and comments in this blog, it’s apparent how much work and change our culture needs. But this really shows how deeply engrained violence is in our lives. For someone who has been abused, there are not only physical consequences but psychological ones too. For example, females who have gone through intimate partner maltreatment demonstrated psychological scars. Studies show that women who felt that the psychological maltreatment (which includes verbal attacks, threats of harm, abuse, and torture) was worse experienced severe consequences “including higher passivity; greater social isolation; greater fear, shame, and depression; lower self-esteem; and greater acceptance of responsibility for the maltreatment” (Family Violence in the United States, Hines & Malley-Morrison, 2013) Is it still surprising to see that people who have been abused remain in silence? The brain is such an important organ for development and the effects of abuse can cause severe damage during critical periods for children and adults. Knowing the effects that abuse can have, the responsibility is now prevention and treatment. There are currently over 2,000 domestic violence programs in the U.S for battered women and their children. Similar to the Center for Domestic Violence Prevention, they offer services like a 24-hour support line, community support groups, art and play therapy for children exposed to intimate violence, counseling, legal assistance, etc (Family Violence in the United States, Hines & Malley-Morrison, 2013). Victims of abuse are going through more than what you can physically see, but there’s deep underlying psychological damage in their lives that we need to shed light on and then help them feel alive again.
As I read this, I couldn’t help but think of the implications of PTSD on everyday life as it relates to the workplace. It is mentioned that if a child’s fear center, the limbic system, is irritated, it can have long term effects. On the topic of learned responses, when these neuronal connections within certain areas of the brain are activated repeatedly by fear and anxiety, they will eventually become much stronger. As a result, a child may begin to experience generalized anxiety as he or she grows older, which could result in debilitating social anxiety and even agoraphobia. Because PTSD stems from generalized anxiety (nightmares, fear of loud noises), a person may be noticeably lower functioning. Personally, I have worked with someone who suffers from PTSD, and although I was made aware later, there were many signs. She became extremely tense when room volume was even slightly increased above a normal level, and she often seemed to feel very frantic. While she suffers from PTSD as a result of her deployment in Afghanistan, it is not farfetched to assume that victims of abuse suffer from the same brain dysfunction. It becomes very difficult for those suffering from PTSD to recover, although it is possible, and it makes it even more difficult to adapt to everyday life. Unfortunately, a child who was abused by his or her family may grow up to become an adult with no family ties, and perhaps limited personal connections. Without a support system, this same person suffering from PTSD may find themselves jobless, resorting to crime for money, or homeless.