Children with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs): Interventions for the Caregiver & Child – Carol Westby

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Many children receiving rehabilitation and special education services have experienced multiple Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) that may not be recognized or addressed by service providers. In this session, you will learn: the biological/neurological effects of trauma; the effects of ACEs on children’s cognitive, language and social-emotional development; caregiver-child interventions to promote attunement and affect management; and child intervention strategies to promote resiliency and facilitate developmental skills for self-regulation. You will learn a framework that requires an integration of cognition/language and temperament/sensory/regulation factors. Interventions combine a mindfulness/mindsight approach for both caregivers and children. 

1. Determine the effects of adverse childhood experiences on children’s language and social-emotional development
2. Develop caregiver-child interventions that promote attunement/affect management
3. Implement strategies to promote resiliency and language for personal narratives/self-regulation

ACEs and Development

• Types of ACEs
• Biological/neurological effects
• How attachment mediates trauma
• Autobiographical memory
• Narratives in parents & children who have experienced ACEs
• Framework for intervention

Interventions that Promote Attunement/Affect Management

• Goals for caregiver intervention
• Recognizing temperaments
• How children respond to danger
• Using mindfulness and mindsight in responding to children’s behaviors

Promote Resiliency for Personal Narratives and Self-Regulation

• Aspects of self-identity to develop
• Childhood competencies to development
• Characteristics of reminiscing
• How to reminisce
• Develop child’s emotional understanding: emotion coaching, reading body cues, recognizing emotions in stories