Posts in category: Dating Tips, Guide and Advice

Childhood emotional abuse and neglect can result in permanent changes to the developing human brain. These changes in brain structure appear to be significant enough to potentially cause psychological and emotional problems in adulthood, such as psychological disorders and substance misuse.

Around 14% of Americans report experiencing emotional abuse or neglect during their childhood. Emotional abuse can include:

• Insulting, name-calling, or swearing at a child
• Threatening to physically harm the child
• Terrorizing or otherwise making the child feel afraid

Emotional neglect involves failing to meet a child’s emotional needs. This can include failing to:

• Believe in the child
• Create a close-knit family
• Make the child feel special or important
• Provide support
• Want the child to be successful

How Abuse Alters Brain Structure

As children grow, their brains undergo periods of rapid development. Negative experiences can disrupt those developmental periods, leading to changes in the brain later on.

Research supports this idea and suggests that the timing and duration of childhood abuse can impact the way it affects those children later in life. Abuse that occurs early in childhood for a prolonged period of time, for example, can lead to particularly negative outcomes.

Dr. Martin Teicher and his colleagues at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Northeastern University studied the relationship between abuse and brain structure by using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology to identify measured changes in brain structure among young adults who had experienced childhood abuse or neglect.

They found clear differences in nine brain regions between those who had experienced childhood trauma and those who had not. The most obvious changes were in the brain regions that help balance emotions and impulses, as well as self-aware thinking. The study’s results indicate that people who have been through childhood abuse or neglect do have an increased risk of developing mental health issues later on.

Effects on Brain Structure

Childhood abuse and neglect can have several negative effects on how the brain develops. Some of these are:

• Decreased size of the corpus callosum, which integrates cortical functioning—motor, sensory, and cognitive performances—between the hemispheres
• Decreased size of the hippocampus, which is important in learning and memory
• Dysfunction at different levels of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which is involved in the stress response
• Less volume in the prefrontal cortex, which affects behavior, emotional balance, and perception
• Overactivity in the amygdala, which is responsible for processing emotions and determining reactions to potentially stressful or dangerous situations
• Reduced volume of the cerebellum, which can affect motor skills and coordination

Follow Now: Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Google Podcasts / Amazon Music

Effects on Behavior, Emotions, and Social Function

Because childhood abuse, neglect, and trauma change brain structure and chemical function, maltreatment can also affect the way children behave, regulate emotions, and function socially. These potential effects include:

• Being constantly on alert and unable to relax, no matter the situation
• Feeling fearful most or all of the time
• Finding social situations more challenging
• Learning deficits
• Not hitting developmental milestones in a timely fashion
• A tendency to develop a mental health condition
• A weakened ability to process positive feedback

These effects can continue to cause issues in adulthood if they’re not addressed. Adults who experienced maltreatment during childhood may have trouble with interpersonal relationships—or they may avoid them altogether.

These outcomes could be related to attachment theory, or the idea that our early relationships with caregivers influence the way we relate to people later on in life. Emotional abuse and neglect don’t allow for a secure attachment to form between a child and caregiver, which causes distress for the child and influences the way they see themselves and others.

Adults who went through childhood emotional abuse or neglect may also experience:

Treatment

Through treatment, it is possible to address the effects of childhood emotional abuse and neglect. Treatment in these cases is highly individual since maltreatment can take many forms and each person’s response to it may differ.

Any form of treatment would likely include therapy and, depending on whether or not any other mental health conditions are present, may include medication as well. Brain plasticity is at its peak during early childhood, meaning early intervention is the best way to recover from changes in the brain caused by stress and trauma. Although the adult brain continues to have plasticity, it requires more effort and time to re-establish healthy neural connections. Some effective forms of therapy for children and adults are:

• Attachment and Biobehavioral Catchup (ABC): Partnering with parents and teaching them to re-interpret their children’s behavior and respond to them sensitively. Creating a safe and positive interaction between the parent and the child fosters a secure attachment and healthy brain development. This results in children who can learn to self-regulate their own emotions and behaviors.
• Exposure therapy: Exposure therapy involves interacting with something that typically provokes fear while slowly learning to remain calm. This form of therapy may improve neural connections between several regions in the brain.
• Family therapy: Family therapy is a psychological treatment intended to improve relationships within the entire family and create a better, more supportive home environment. This type of treatment may improve HPA axis functioning and lead to a healthier stress response. 
• Mindfulness-based approaches: Mindfulness-based therapy focuses on helping people develop a sense of awareness of their thoughts and feelings so they can understand them and better regulate them. These approaches may help improve resiliency against stress by benefiting several brain regions and improving neural connections.
• Play therapy: Play therapy can help a child process and express emotions in a safe environment. Using toys, games, and crafts can help a child get comfortable and may use play to act out or express their emotions and learn to regulate their behavior while adopting healthier coping mechanisms.
• Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT): TF-CBT focuses on helping people learn new coping skills, restructure negative or unhelpful thoughts, regulate their moods, and overcome trauma by crafting a trauma narrative. This form of therapy may help reduce overactivity in the amygdala.

If your child has been diagnosed with depression or will be evaluated for depression, you may have heard of the Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI). The CDI is a tool that mental health professionals use to measure the cognitive, affective, and behavioral signs of depression in children and adolescents between the ages of 7 and 17. 

The Children’s Depression Inventory is used to scale the severity of depressive symptoms in children. It also differentiates between major depressive disorder and persistent depressive disorder (formerly known as dysthymic disorder) in children. It can help practitioners distinguish between these disorders and other psychiatric conditions. 

How the Children’s Depression Inventory Works

The CDI was developed by Maria Kovacs to diagnose depression in children more easily. Other self-report assessments for identifying depression in children include the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Weinberg Screening Affective Scale (WSAS). 

While depression is often considered an adult disorder, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that 4.4% of kids between the ages of 3 and 17 have been diagnosed with depression.

The Children’s Depression Inventory has two forms: The original 27-item version and the 10-item short-form version, which takes between 5 and 15 minutes for the child to complete.

The CDI is designed to detect symptoms of depression and to distinguish between depression and other psychiatric disorders. It can also be used as an instrument to monitor changes in depression symptoms over time.

How Is the Children’s Depression Inventory Administered?

Each item in the CDI has three statements, and the child is asked to select the one answer that best describes their feelings over the past two weeks. There are five subscales within the assessment that measure different components of depression:

• Anhedonia (inability or decreased ability to experience joy)
• Ineffectiveness (lack of motivation or inability to complete tasks)
• Interpersonal problems (difficulty making and keeping close relationships)
• Negative mood (irritability or anger)
• Negative self-esteem (the belief that you are not good at anything)

How Reliable Is the Children’s Depression Inventory?

The CDI has excellent psychometric properties, which means that it measures depression in children accurately and reliably when used properly. Some research indicates, however, that the test is not appropriate for children who have reading difficulties. 

Research has also shown that the Children’s Depression Inventory (both the full version and short version) is a valid instrument for screening for depression in pediatric settings. It has also been validated for use with children who have physical disabilities.

However, doctors working in pediatric care are advised to follow up with diagnostic assessments to rule out potential false positives. 

Interpreting the Children’s Depression Inventory 

Only a professional trained on the properties of the CDI can accurately interpret the results. A raw score on the test is essentially meaningless without a professional’s interpretation, so parents should always discuss the meaning of the results with the professional who evaluated the child.

You should discuss follow-up assessments with your child’s doctor to determine the best course of treatment for your child. Milder symptoms may respond well to support and self-care, while more moderate to severe symptoms may require other treatments such as medications or psychotherapy.

Limitations of the Children’s Depression Inventory

Like other self-report assessments used in children, the Children’s Depression Inventory is vulnerable to certain limitations. For example, because children don’t have the same sophistication as adults when it comes to understanding and reporting their emotions, their responses may not reflect their true emotional state.

In addition, children may be more likely than adults to attempt to give what they believe to be the desired answers rather than answers that represent their true feelings.

While the inventory has five subscales, some studies have failed to support the five-factor structure. Instead, some researchers indicate that two-, three-, or four-factor models are a better fit. 

The use of the CDI for children outside of the U.S. may be limited due to cultural-specific interpretations. One study found that demographic and socio-cultural factors influenced the interpretation of depressive symptoms. This suggests that more research is needed to ensure the CDI is valid in cultures outside the U.S.

What Happens Next?

The Children’s Depression Inventory is a quick and painless depression assessment for your child. While any type of test is sure to make a child nervous, you can assure your child that there are no right or wrong answers.

Depressive symptoms tend to fluctuate in both children and adults. Therefore, the test’s author recommends retesting any child who receives a positive score on the CDI two to four weeks after the initial test.  

If you are concerned about depression in your child, it is important to consult with your child’s pediatrician or other mental health professional. It is important that childhood depression is treated quickly.

Childhood depression can have serious consequences, particularly when it is left untreated. It can affect a child’s personal development, well-being, health, and academic achievement. Such effects can also carry over into adulthood.

Detecting childhood depression early and treating it effectively can help kids feel better and protect their well-being as they develop.