The correlation between adverse childhood experiences and children's behavior

Abstract

This project focused on the correlation between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in elementary age children and their exhibited behaviors. The problem is there are negative behaviors evident in elementary aged children who have experienced ACEs. The purpose of this project is to explore the correlation between ACEs and children's behavior. The databases searched for articles for use in this project were Google Scholar and Tennessee Tech University's Volpe library. The keywords used were child maltreatment, childhood trauma, and behavior. The inclusion of articles was based on the relevance to the topic. The participants in the reviewed studies were school aged children and adults. The three most important findings were 1. struggles with attention, learning, emotion, and memory affect emotional regulation in children, 2. different forms of childhood maltreatment have behavioral effects, and 3. children who have experienced ACEs suffer long-term effects. These results connect to the purpose of this study because they show there is a correlation between ACEs and children's psychiatric health and behaviors. The results outlined above support the notion that children who have experienced ACEs are affected both academically and mentally. Having such experiences also affect children's attention, emotions, memory, and behaviors. A child's mental state influences the way a child behaves within their environments and these effects may be long term.