The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study and Why it Matters
The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study highlights the long-term negative impact of traumatic events in childhood. The results are staggering. Childhood trauma has potentially devastating consequences in many realms: physical, behavioral, emotional, social, and financial.
Download: Finding Your ACE Score Questionnaire
Physical fallout includes increased smoking, addictions, chronic diseases, obesity, STD’s, and fetal death. With a score of 6 or more life expectancy is shortened by 20 years.The behavioral impact includes a much higher suicide risk, and increased likelihood of being a perpetrator or victim of violence, risky sexual behavior, and more marriages.
Emotionally, higher ACE scores correlate with a dramatically elevated risk of depression, anxiety, PTSD, conduct disorder, and learning problems.
The social consequences are stunning. With a score of 4 or more we see lower academic achievement, poor social skills, more delinquent and criminal behavior, and even food insecurity in the family.
In looking at the financial ramifications of high ACE scores we see expenses related to criminal justice, healthcare, and behavioral health costs, and family financial stress.
In fact, the lifetime cost of nonfatal child abuse and neglect in 2008 was over $210,000 per victim, and the total lifetime economic burden in the U.S. was a whopping $124 billion.
Not all the news is bad.
There has been a recent surge of interest in the ACE Study and communities are developing creative ways to intervene and prevent intergenerational transmission of the issues caused by high ACE scores.
To find out how you can help build stronger, healthier communities, please view this seminar that will arm you with tools to help individuals and families with high ACE scores. We’ll talk about prevention, intervention, and how you can use this information in your work with people in community.
-Martha Teater, MA, LMFT, LCAS, LPC
This blog was contributed by PESI speaker Martha Teater, MA, LMFT, LCAS, LPC. Martha has been in private practice in NC since 1990. She is a speaker in the US and internationally on compassion fatigue, evidence-based treatment of trauma, DSM-5, and behavioral treatment of chronic pain. You can learn more about Martha at www.MarthaTeater.com and www.teaterhs.com
Martha Teater, MA, LMFT, LCAS, LPC, is a Diplomate with the Academy for Cognitive Therapy and is a practicing cognitive-behavioral therapist. She has maintained a private practice since 1990 and has worked in primary care settings, free clinics, and medication-assisted treatment programs. Martha is a Red Cross disaster mental health manager and has been on many national disaster deployments where she provides support to traumatized people. She is also involved with the Red Cross Service to the Armed Forces to develop programs to support military and veteran families.
She has provided trainings in the United States and internationally on topics such as evidence-based treatments for trauma, DSM-5®, compassion fatigue, and behavioral treatment of chronic pain. A prolific writer, Martha has published over 175 articles in newspapers and magazines, including Psychotherapy Networker and Family Therapy Magazine. Martha is the co-author (with John Ludgate) of Overcoming Compassion Fatigue: A Practical Resilience Workbook (PESI, 2014) and (with Don Teater) Treating Chronic Pain: Pill-Free Approaches to Move People from Hurt to Hope (PESI, 2017).
Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Martha Teater maintains a private practice and receives compensation as a consultant. She receives a speaking honorarium, recording, and book royalties from Psychotherapy Networker and PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Martha Teater is a member of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy and the American Association for Marriage & Family Therapy. She is a peer reviewer for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Admiration and a reviewer for the National Board for Certified Counselors.
