A traumatic event involves a single incident or a repetition of events that full devastates the individuals ability to cope and

integrate with the ideas and emotions associated and involved with that incident. Sexual harassment and abuse, warfare, criminal cases, accidents, emotional stress and more, all of these are just some examples of traumatic events that might happen to people.

In this sense, anyone exposed to traumatic events may eventually experience serious long-term negative consequences throughout life.

Due to these traumatic events, the developments of children are affected. Likewise, the behaviour and attitude of each young people may alter and vary during the course of their lives.

According to the American Psychological Association, trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, rape or natural disaster. It may either be a physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual injury in an individual. Longer term reactions include

unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, strained relationships and even physical symptoms like headaches or nausea. While these feelings are normal, some people have difficulty moving on with their lives.

There are different categories under trauma. The most usual trauma is the one in the field of medicine. Medical trauma refers to a body wound or shock produced by sudden physical injury. Psychological trauma is an emotional or psychological injury. Geriatric trauma and pediatric trauma refers to the traumas in the elderly and in children.

Psychological trauma is most often related to pediatric traumas. It is associated to the past events that happened throughout the years of the child. Traumas such as these may be results from auto accident, the breakup of a significant relationship, a humiliating or deeply disappointing experience, the discovery of a life-threatening illness or disabling condition, death of someone dear to an individual, sexual abuse and harassment, and many more similar traumatizing events. 1

Pediatric traumas or most commonly known as childhood trauma generally refers to traumatic incidents within children of the age 0-12. Such incidents include sexual abuse and harassment, death of friend, relative or loved one, accidents, wars, crimes and many more.

Sexual abuse and harassment is the intimidation of a sexual nature or the inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favours. A mere child may experience this abuse if left unprotected. This will eventually cause the child mind troubles and later into a trauma. Medical procedures are courses of action intended to determine an individuals health. This may also be a cause of trauma. Some medical procedures include surgeries that could affect the psychological thinking of the child.

Bullying is a form of aggressive behaviour that includes verbal harassment, physical assault and may be repeated several times that it could strike the childs way of living.

Death of a relative, a family member or a special loved one may also trigger disastrous outcome to a childs life.

Other traumatic experiences are humiliation and deeply disappointing experiences, homelessness, vehicle accidents and/or other kinds of accidents, life-threatening condition or severe illness. Traumatizing events can take a serious emotional toll on those involved, even if the event did not cause physical damage.

Even when unrecognized, emotional trauma can create lasting difficulties in an individual's life. One way to determine whether an emotional or psychological trauma has occurred, perhaps even early in life before language or conscious awareness were in place, is to look at the kinds of recurring problems one might be experiencing. Trauma can affect many areas of a childs development. The degree to which trauma affects a childs development depends on the severity and duration of the trauma, how much 2

support they receive, and the personality and age of the child. Childhood trauma doesnt only involve young children but even infants as well. Some actors outside influence the development of children but changes can take place in the brain before a child is even born. Research confirms that maternal drinking or smoking can negatively impact a fetus. There is also reason to believe that psychological factors, such as the fear experienced by pregnant mothers who are battered may create physiological changes that negatively impact the developing fetus.

According to a study by Bohn, in the year 1993, a pregnant woman found that 30% reported being battered during their current pregnancy and 55% during a previous pregnancy.

These figures represent the possibility of an alarming number of children who are affected by violence even before birth. Even after childbirth, children may experience these kinds of torture. The brain develops, in part, in response to the infants experiences. If the relationship with the primary caregiver is neglectful or abusive, this will have a negative impact on the childs development of appropriate coping skills. Trauma in early life can lead to problems in maintaining interpersonal relationships, coping with stressful situations, and controlling emotion. In the year 2001, Schore said that the crucial experiences that form a persons ways of coping come from the caregiver-infant relationship.

Infants who have suffered trauma in their first year of life have difficulty developing working coping strategies.

Trauma experienced prior to age two, may have particularly harmful effects, including

biochemical changes that make a developmentally immature, structurally defective right brain. Trauma in infancy may lead to disruption of the development of the right hemisphere of the brain (Schore, 2001)

Traumatic events may be repressed but are not fully forgotten. The child may reexperience the trauma through any of her senses. He may experience vivid and unwelcome flashbacks, often during quiet, unfocused times, such as when bored in class, falling asleep, listening to the radio, or watching television.

In the year 1995, Perry and others said that repeated exposure to trauma may result in a situation-specific state becoming a more permanent trait.

Early trauma, particularly at the hands of a caregiver, can markedly alter a childs perception of self, trust in others and perception of the world. Children who experienced severe early trauma often develop a foreshortened sense of the future.

In the year 1992, Terr said that children come to expect that life will be dangerous, that they may not survive, and as a result, they give up hope and expectation for themselves that reach into the future.

The range of normal emotional responses to trauma is broad, encompassing fear, anger, sadness, and humiliation. Traumatic stress refers to the physical and emotional responses to events that threaten the life, physical safety, and/or psychological integrity of the child or someone important to the child. Traumatic experiences are described as unexpected and unpredictable and are experienced as uncontrollable and terrifying. Emotional responses to traumatic experiences are typically perceived as overwhelming and may include terror, helplessness, and extreme physiologic arousal. In the childs play or behaviour, she will recall and attempt to rework the event. 4

Her drawings and stories may incorporate and reflect the traumatic event/s. Although referred to as play, repetitive post-traumatic play is more often grim work. Reliving the event represents an attempt to master fears that continue to haunt or overwhelm the child.

Tragically, trauma shatters the natural sense of invincibility and trust basic to normal childhood. This shakes the childs confidence about the future and can lead to limited expectations. Traumatized children often have a pessimistic view of career, marriage, having children, and even life expectancy. Childhood trauma darkens the childs vision of the future as well as her attitudes about people. Young people who have been traumatized will voice cautious, one-day-at-a-time attitudes. They may say that you cant count on anyone. Sexually traumatized girls may shrink from or approach them with overly friendly sexual advances. Traumatized children tend to recognize the profound vulnerability in all people, especially themselves.

Trauma-related fears often persist into adulthood. While some anxious children express apprehension about growing up or getting married, sexually abused children may grow up fearing sexual contact.

Passing fears of strangers, the dark, being alone are not uncommon at certain developmental stages of childhood and also appear in other emotional disorders. However, extreme panic and avoidance of these situations may be the result of earlier exposure to severe trauma.

Within the traumatized child, internal changes may occur which can affect her later in life, surfacing in adolescence or early adulthood. Without treatment, some childhood traumas can result in later problems characters by violent behaviour, extremes of passivity and victimization, self-mutilation, suicidal or self-endangering behaviour, and anxiety disturbances. 5

Children may face trauma that threatens their integrity, safety, or even life. The loss of control, the unpredictability, and the extremely aversive nature of the event or events are the main pathogenic elements. The family is known to pay a vital role in determining the eventual impact of the traumatic experience on the child, and parental support is often determined to be a key mediating factor in how the child experiences and adapts to the victimizing circumstances.

The first and most obvious impact that childhood trauma can have is on the psychological development of the child, with the potential of forwarding these psychological symptoms into adulthood. What is worse perhaps, is that as the individual gets older, the resulting psychological issues of chronic and/or co morbid trauma can in fact become elevated and more difficult to treat as time wears on, setting these conditions firmly into the psyche of the individual.

Children with a history of trauma, particularly abuse or neglect, have a higher likelihood of developing one or more depressive disorders.

One of these disorders is the border line personality disorder or also known as emotionally unstable personality disorder. It is associated with prolonged disturbance of personality and variability of moods.

Another disorder, schizoid personality disorder is characterized by lack of social interest and relationships, a tendency towards a solitary lifestyle, secretiveness, emotional coldness, and apathy.

The book Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini exemplified racial discrimination to Hassan, a Pashtun, who was differentiated by Assef because he was a young Hazara. Assef even mocked Amir because he befriended Hassan. Assef's actions even resulted in beating and raping Hassan. This incident resulted to a great crack in Amir's and Hassan's friendship. Later on, Hassan and his father decided to leave the house due to their broken friendship.

In one of Lenore Terrs book, Too Scared to Cry: Psychic Trauma in Childhood, 26 California children were kidnapped from their school bus and were buried alive. Fortunately, all of them survived. From this book, Lenore explored the vast and dire effects of psychological trauma. She defined trauma to be a single overwhelming experience.

Taking into consideration, the author, who interviewed the victims soon after their release from the abandoned rock quarry where they were buried, continues to make periodic assessments of the children and analyzes their attendant losses in cognitive and emotive function.

Torey Hayden, author of One Child, wrote a very compelling story about children studying in a special education school. He showed how the children get affected by things happening around them. One incident was bullying where one child never got over until he reached the age of puberty. A Child Called It, a book written by Dave Pelzer, is about the unforgettable account of one of the most severe child abuse cases in California history. It is the story of Dave Pelzer, who was brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother: a mother who played tortuous, unpredictable games--games that left him nearly dead. He had to learn how to play his mother's games in order to survive because she no longer considered him a son, but a slave; and no longer a boy, but an "it." Dave Pelzer overcame his trauma on his third book A Man Called Dave and became a known writer. This is certainly one account why childhood trauma is often considered as one threat to the world.

One in twenty children born today will spend some part of his or her adult life in jail. During the last thirty years, violent crimes committed by youth have risen by 371 percent. Cutting to the heart of this alarming trend, Ghosts from the Nursery, by Robin Karr- Mose and Meredith S. Wiley, gives startling new evidence that violent behaviour is fundamentally linked to abuse and neglect in the first two years of life. In absorbing and accessible prose, the authors 7

present case histories of children who kill, along with the latest in brain development research. Ghosts from the Nursery compellingly demonstrates the poisonous effect that neglect, abuse, trauma, injury, and toxicity have in the first thirty-three months of life. Blazie Holling, protagonist in the book Emotional Triangle, after witnessing a violent murder as a small child, lost the ability to speak. Later she lost her best friend to leukemia, her father to fire and her fianc to random violence. These traumatic events and many others caused her to become an angry, substance abusing adult who successfully hid her profound grief and anxiety. Jennifer Collins, an advocate against child abuse today experienced childhood trauma. When she was a little girl, she was abused by her father. Her brother and she were forced to live in abuse for 18 months and 8 days. At an early age, she had already faced the court and fought for her own rights and caused her multiple disorders back then.

Judy Murphy, a ten-year-old girl, locked herself in a bathroom stall at school and threatened to kill herself. She has lived in more than twenty foster homes and has been admitted to psychiatric hospitals several times for treatment of depression. The cause of this is from the physical and sexual abuse she experienced from her stepfather from the time she was a toddler until early elementary school age. Mike Wigenar, a five year old boy, age was referred to a rehabilitation center for children for he was physically aggressive. Mike hits his mother, his teacher, other children, and also has a staggering vocabulary of profanity for a five year old. It was further discovered that since the beginning of his childhood, he witnessed abuse from his father and exposure to violent environment. Marcus Jackson, was sodomized by 9 year-old in school bathroom. He was sexually abused by one of his classmates in the school bathroom more than once. His family discovered the abuse 8

after he began soiling himself, something he didnt usually do, and developed schizophrenia. Allison Washington, was 7 years old then when she was exposed to sexual violence by her sister who was two years older than her by that time. After the event, she experienced severe depression for weeks and had several suicide attempts Sarah Kurt, after she was sexually harassed by her brothers bestfriend at the age of 9 when she was thirteen changed her life dramatically. She experienced verges of psychotic breakdown. It caused her to have philematophobia (phobia of kissing) throughout her life. Childhood traumas range widely in their severity and impact. A car accident, an earthquake or flood, being attacked by a dog, undergoing a frightening medical treatment all are distinctly different events yet all provoke common symptoms of psychological trauma. These symptoms may include fearfulness, nightmares, and dramatic behavioural or personality changes. Childhood trauma is one deadly risk involved in a childs life. If not prevented, if not taken into consideration, if not well avoided, much pain will be given to a child. Moreover, it may leave the kid half-dead.

Due to the negative effects traumatic events pose, specifically to the children, their psychological development may be greatly affected. The way they view their lives may subject to change because of the incidents.

Overall, childhood trauma interferes with the attention and retention of information and thus affect the childs learning abilities. They interfere with the childs ability to form positive relationships, thus resulting in the childs inability to move in their teens and adult years as well.

Gathering the information above and getting sufficient data, we conclude that childhood trauma may affect the ability and development of a child negatively and that it may cause 9

psychological disorders such as borderline personality disorder and schizoid personality disorder.

Bibliographies

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/emotional_psychological_trauma.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_trauma http://www.helpguide.org/mental/emotional_psychological_trauma.htm http://ezinearticles.com/?Dealing-With-the-Long-Lasting-Effects-of-ChildhoodTrauma&id=1243887 http://www.dcp.wa.gov.au/FosteringandAdoption/Documents/Fostering%20Services%20 fact%20sheets/Childhood%20trauma.pdf http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1994-25812-001

Fergusson, David M and Paul Mullen.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/abstractdb/AbstractDBDetails.aspx?id=180495 ok, Bikmaz S. 6 Sept. 2007. Http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.16000447.2007.01079.x/abstract;jsessionid=B24921E87B6A4F8E85E1477B1BA36D5C.d03t 04?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=

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Tarlac Montessori School High School Department La Puerta del sol Hi-Land Subd.

In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements in English IV

Presented By: Magg Jurrance F. Buniag John Paul B. David Io A. Tongol Manuel Paolo L. Rigor

Date: April 2, 2012