Child maltreatment
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ACEs – Adverse Childhood Experiences
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are defined as situations that lead to an elevated risk of children and young people experiencing damaging impacts on their health and other social outcomes across the life course.
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January 2021 – The Bridge
This issue of The Bridge features summaries of recent child and adolescent mental health research. I hope you enjoy reading about this excellent work which improves our understanding of a wide range of conditions and informs mental health care for young people.
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Can childcare attendance reduce externalising behaviour in children exposed to adversity?
Childcare attendance has been proposed as a public health initiative to help close the developmental gap between children from disadvantaged families and their wealthier peers.1,2 Now, Marie-Pier Larose and colleagues have investigated whether childcare attendance might modify the association between exposure to family adversity early in life and later externalising behaviour by buffering cognitive function.
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Emotional abuse during childhood is linked with differences in brain structure
Delia Gheorghe and colleagues at the University of Oxford have harnessed data from the UK Biobank to delineate the relationship between adverse experiences and brain structure. The researchers accessed brain imaging data together with retrospective reports of childhood adversity and adulthood partner abuse from more than 6,000 adults (mean age, 62.1 years).
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Nigerian young people from parentally deprived backgrounds show enhanced working memory capacity
Early adverse rearing can impair cognitive functions in all domains.1 However, those who take an evolutionary–developmental stance propose that there could be adaptive benefits associated with early adverse rearing.2,3
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September 2020 – The Bridge
The month of September is a challenging time for young people, as they start a new school year. September 2020 will be particularly difficult for many, as they must also deal with the stresses of the coronavirus pandemic and social distancing, as well as the effects of increasing financial pressures on families.
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A history of abuse increases the risk of suicide attempts in youth
Researchers in Belgium and the USA have conducted one of the first investigations into whether a history of various forms of abuse and the presence of mood disorders and psychotic symptoms can predict suicide attempts in psychiatrically hospitalized children.
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Female Pioneers: Tamsin Ford CBE on psychologist and analyst Alice Miller
To celebrate International Women’s Day, three ACAMH luminaries shine the spotlight on the female pioneers of child and adolescent psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis, they most admire. “Miller stands out because she demonstrated critical thought and was prepared to openly change her stance in the light of her research findings.”
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Disinhibited social engagement behaviour is not unique to children exposed to inadequate caregiving
Interestingly, the course of DSEB was not associated with neglect, emotional maltreatment or effortful control but there was evidence for a significant association with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder.
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Why it’s good to ban smacking
I remember going to an international conference on child abuse and neglect many years ago and thinking before I went, that the UK was pretty far ahead in terms of the services we offer. I was shocked when one presentation went through some of the evidence on how smacking is related to physical abuse, and how many countries in the world allowed it.
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