Childhood Adversity and Developmental Effects

Child trauma and violence is not an issue that is constrained to one nationality or one ethnicity. A staggering number of children around the world are subjected to violence and abuse, both domestic and political. The current volume examines the issue of developmental trauma from a variety of viewpoints, including sociological, epidemiological, genetic, and psychiatric. The chapters contained within are broken into the following sections:

• Child neglect and violence from an international perspective
• The effects of war and armed conflict on children’s health and development
• The impact of childhood trauma on mental and physical health into adulthood
• Case studies of interventions that provide possibilities for treatment in a variety of different contexts

Written by a researcher from Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital (Boston), this book provides an important resource for understanding violence as an almost ubiquitous presence in children’s lives around the world, as well as offering directions for treatment and interventions. This book is an important resource for researchers, counselors, psychologists, child advocates, and anyone who seeks to understand how adversity in childhood affects a person’s entire life.