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Developmental Trauma and

the BrainCommunity Care Programs6716 Stone Glen DriveMiddleton, WI Cory Kitt, MS, LPC

© CommunityCarePrograms, 2014

This presentation has lots of information and may be overwhelming at first glance. We have done this intentionally so you have as much info as possible when we leave.

One size fits one. What works for one student or educator, may need ‘tweaking’ for another.

Trauma Informed Educator Skills work well with PBIS. Seeing student behavior through the trauma lens takes blame out of the picture and jump-starts positive change.

Disclaimers

© CommunityCarePrograms, 2014 2

58% experienced at least 1 ACE 14% experienced at least 4 ACEs Results

◦ Emotional abuse—29%◦ Physical Abuse—17%◦ Sexual Abuse—11%◦ Violence between adults in household—16%◦ AODA in household—27%◦ Untreated mental illness in household—16%◦ Separation/divorce of parents—21%◦ Incarcerated member of household—6%


Wisconsin and ACEs


Prevalence of Trauma in Students

13 out of 30 students in a classroom have toxic stress from 3 or more ACEs

Source: Washington State Family Policy Council

Trauma is defined as an event or series of events that happens to you or someone you love.

The events are perceived as dangerous,

uncontrollable and trigger intense fear, helplessness or horror.

• A tornado hits your home • Living with a drug addicted parent who never has

food in the house and yells at you all the time.• Living in a home where there is domestic violence.

What is Trauma?


Stressors become traumas when the stressful experience is recurring, unremitting or exceeds the coping capacity of the youth

Coping capacity is a combination of coping skills and having a supportive environment in which to demonstrate those skills

Stressors v. Traumas


It is usually the youth’s experience of the event, not the event itself that is traumatizing

Developmental trauma events are often interpersonal in nature and happen early in a youth’s life/caregiving experiences.

Developmental Trauma


Neglect is defined as the absence of sufficient attention, responsiveness and protection appropriate to the age and needs of the child.

(www.developingchild.harvard.edu)

Developmental Trauma


Trauma affects children in different ways depending on the age and developmental level at which the traumas occurred


Educators →create and maintain trauma sensitive learning environments that feel emotionally and physically safe to students.

Educators →refer students for evaluation and treatment to the school social worker, psychologist or counselor for screening and crisis management.

School mental health staff →refer students to community psychologists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists for treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and other mental health needs.

Trauma Sensitive Schools & Trauma Therapy


List the traumas that your students have experienced

Exercise #1


Brain Principle #1The brain is organized from the bottom up. This means that more fundamental brain processes develop first and form the foundation for more sophisticated behaviors and processes.

3 Important Brain Development Principles


Traumatic experiences early in development make it harder to learn more sophisticated and mature behaviors later on because the supporting neurons are not available –

No stable base for future development


Think about when the trauma occurred in a child’s life and ask:

“what social, emotional and cognitive skills might not have developed

because of the traumas?”



Dr. Bruce Perry and the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT)

Neurons are ‘use dependent’.

Neurons that are used, grow more connections to other neurons.

Neurons that are not used, are ‘pruned’ or disappear.

Brain Principle #2


“Neurons that fire together, wire together”

The brain can develop a ‘superhighway’ between certain neurons so that one neuron’s firing always elicits the firing of a linked neuron (triggers).

Eg. Hearing the word “no” can trigger a ‘fight’ reaction in some students. The more times this link is practiced, the stronger it becomes.

Brain Principle #3


Female student, age 7, comes into classroom with history of physical abuse

Parents are non-English speaking Child presents with defiant attitude, physically

aggressive behavior (hitting, damaging property), and is a picky eater

Apply the 3 brain principles to identify potential lapses in neural development (what wired and fired together; what was disrupted during brain development?)


Applying the Principles

Physiologic Effects: A cascade of stress chemicals including epinephrine (adrenaline)

Stress chemicals inhibit neurogenesis – the making of ‘baby neurons’

Trauma Effects on the Body and Brain


Early trauma leads to heightened production of stress chemicals in the brain, especially in the Amygdalae making them hyper-reactive (Heim, 2001)

The amygdalae get “trigger happy” making it more difficult to cope


The end result from long term exposure to trauma, stress chemicals, and neurons firing and wiring together:

the amygdalae get bigger, while thehippocampi and parts of the

Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) shrink (McEwen, 2007)


Now we have a ‘perfect storm’ – over functioning Amygdalae and under functioning Prefrontal Cortex and Hippocampi.

Bigger amygdalae means more emotionally reactive.

Smaller hippocampi mean less effective working memory skills.

Smaller Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) means less effective affect regulation.

Trauma Effects on Learning and Attention


Fewer association neurons (grey matter) mean trouble making links between ideas and facts (Liston et al.,2006)

Constant neurologic hyperarousal makes it difficult to pay attention and settle into a task. (Pollak et al., 2005)


Movement eases the anxiety so lots of youth present with symptoms of ADHD; stimulant medications that address ADHD diagnoses will actually increase symptoms of trauma (anxiety, agitation)


Draw a large square on a piece of blank paper.

Start in the upper left hand corner On the inhale, use a finger to trace the top

line to the 2nd corner On the exhale, trace the line to the 3d

corner On the inhale, trace the line to the 4th

corner On the exhale, trace the line back to the

first corner. Repeat

Exercise #2 - Square Breathing


28

– 10

_______________________________________

– 9

_______________________________________

– 8

_______________________________________

– 7

_______________________________________

– 6 _________________________________

– 5 _________________________________

– 4 _________________________________

– 3

_______________________________________

– 2

_______________________________________

– 1

_______________________________________

Exercise #3: Feelings Thermometer

© CommunityCarePrograms, 2014

Chronic stress ‘re-sets’ the brain’s functioning and leads to higher reactivity to smaller triggers (Perry, 2009)

This can lead to intense emotional outbursts

Emotional contagion where someone else’s emotional dysregulation spreads to others

Trauma Effects on Emotional Regulation


With chronic distress, the stress-response system of the brain is hyper-activated and has trouble shutting off.

The brain develops a new ‘set point’ for ‘normal’ – eg. A youth only feels good when they are fighting.


Early trauma creates “templates” or expectations about what adults will and can do for or to you

Child victims of traumatic stress perceive neutral faces as significantly more negative than children who have not experienced trauma (Pollak & Kistler, 2002)

Abused youth over-attend to anger cues and are more distracted by anger cues from their abusive parent or from other adults (Pollak et al., 2005).

Trauma Effects on Social Relationships


Feel your ‘sits bones’ being drawn down into the support beneath you.

On the inhale, broaden your chest, raise your heart center to the ceiling and arch the spine between the shoulder blades.

On the exhale, round your back one vertebra at a time starting with your neck.

Repeat 5-6 times

Exercise #4 - Seated Cat and Cow


Think of a student with whom you are working who has a history of traumatic experiences.

Think of 1 way that their traumatic experiences might currently affect their learning or behavior…

Exercise #5



Brain Under Construction

Here is one small, trauma-informed step I can take to make a just noticeable

difference in my student’s learning…. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ Signed: _______________________________________________


ACTION PLAN….

THANK YOU FOR

ATTENDING!


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Documents

traumas communitycareprograms

prevalence of trauma

trauma lens

developmental trauma

lpc communitycareprograms

aces communitycareprograms

left column of trauma

developmental level