DFPM RED faculty member Lorraine McKelvey, Ph.D. recently completed work (with other RED team members) on a year-long, grant-funded, study on ACEs impact in Head Start classrooms. Dr. McKelvey’s team has recently submitted a paper to Child Abuse and Neglect highlighting the work done in the study. The study looked at outcomes for ACEs exposed kids based on timing of exposure. The study identified five classes of children:
- Consistently Low (63.8%)
- Decreasing (10.3%)
- High at Age 2 (11.4%)
- Increasing (10.4%)
- Consistently High (4%)
The Consistently Low and Consistently High classes had the most and least optimal development across all domains, respectively. However, the findings for the groups that changed weren’t exactly those expected. For cognitive, language, and physical development, the most proximal ACEs were more robust for predicting child outcomes. For socioemotional health, exposure at any time from one to three to ACEs had negative consequences. As a whole, the team concluded that ACEs screening tools were needed that are both time-sensitive and permit a lifetime report.