Collection

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs): A Developmental-Psychopathology Perspective

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Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have become a hot topic in child and adolescent mental health, as reflected in recent policy shifts toward trauma-informed care in clinical psychology and psychiatry worldwide. Indeed, ACEs are now recognized as major contributors to child psychopathology, and are recognised in most, if not all, etiological models of mental disorders in children. The ACEs ‘movement’ has nonetheless been the subject of controversy, with concerns raised over the potential misuse of the widely-used ‘ACE score’, and perceptions that research in some areas (e.g., stress generation and the familial transmission of ACEs), may even be child or parent blaming. Moreover, research based on the construct of ACEs has often lacked the developmental perspective needed to inform early intervention and prevention practices.

This special issue examines the emerging developmental science of ACEs and child mental health, guided by the overarching aim of bridging and integrating research on ACEs and overlapping fields (e.g., child maltreatment; stressful life events). Theoretical advances (e.g., stress sensitization; dimensional models; differential susceptibility), and methodological innovations (e.g., neuroimaging; inflammation, polygenic risk scores; analysis of person-centred trajectories), and the open science movement (e.g., unprecedented access to population-based longitudinal datasets following children from birth into adulthood), have all combined to fuel giant leaps towards a truly developmental psychopathology perspective on ACEs and child psychopathology. The papers in this special collection showcase the latest progress on this critically important topic, and the state-of-the-art developmental science that is available to inform future work.

Editors

  • Jennifer Allen Jennifer Allen  &

    Jennifer Allen

    Dr Jennifer Allen is a Reader and Research Director on the professional doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of Bath, United Kingdom. She is an academic and clinical psychologist whose research is dedicated to understanding the role of environmental factors, including ACEs in shaping risk pathways to child psychopathology, and the translation of models of risk and resilience into school and family-based interventions. She recently co-edited a practitioner textbook with David Hawes and Cecilia Essau titled ‘Family-based Intervention for Child and Adolescent Mental Health: A Core Competencies Approach’.

  • David Hawes David Hawes

    David Hawes

    Professor David Hawes is a clinical psychologist and academic in the School of Psychology, University of Sydney (USYD), and co-Director of the USYD Child Behaviour Research Clinic. His research focuses on developmental pathways to child conduct problems and related disorders, and innovations in early intervention and prevention strategies, including parenting interventions. He is involved extensively in the training of practitioners, and is a Director of the Australian Association for Cognitive and Behaviour Therapy, and the Growing Minds Australia Clinical Trials Network in child and youth mental health.

Articles (20 in this collection)