Resilience: THE BIOLOGY OF STRESS & THE SCIENCE OF HOPE
THE CHILD MAY NOT REMEMBER, BUT THE BODY REMEMBERS.
Researchers have recently discovered a dangerous biological syndrome caused by abuse and neglect during childhood. As the new documentary Resilience reveals, toxic stress can trigger hormones that wreak havoc on the brains and bodies of children, putting them at a greater risk for disease, homelessness, prison time, and early death. While the broader impacts of poverty worsen the risk, no segment of society is immune. Resilience, however, also chronicles the dawn of a movement that is determined to fight back. Trailblazers in pediatrics, education, and social welfare are using cutting-edge science and field-tested therapies to protect children from the insidious effects of toxic stress—and the dark legacy of a childhood that no child would choose.
Vulnerable Minds: The HARM of Childhood Trauma and the HOPE OF Resilience
In Vulnerable Minds, Hauser provides a new, scientific and humanistic understanding of how the nature of childhood adversity creates unique signatures of trauma. At the same time, Hauser reveals that some children bounce back from adversity, presenting with signatures of resilience. Hope for these children comes from designing interventions that are sensitive to their signatures, enabling greater resilience to and recovery from trauma.
How early life adversity transforms the learning brain
For educators to help children exposed to adverse life experiences, it is necessary to understand how adversity impacts different mechanisms of learning, emotion, and planning as these capacities underpin success in schools and beyond. The goal of this paper is to review essential findings on how early life adversity transforms the brain which, in turn, impacts educational outcomes. Part 1 begins by discussing the species‐specific and expectant experiences that guide typical development, and then turns to early life adversities and their relationship to both physical and mental health outcomes. Part 2 summarizes four dimensions of adversity—type, timing, term, and toxicity—and how each differentially impacts the developing brain, including individual differences in psychopathology.