Child Development Mediated By Trauma

Drawing on clinical data obtained through the study of children adopted from overseas orphanages, the author of this cutting-edge text applies the Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD) conceptual framework to the analysis of psychological, educational and mental health impact of the early childhood trauma on development. A massive scale of international adoption of children, victims of profound neglect and deprivation, combined with the fundamental change in a child's social situation of development after adoption, offers a valuable opportunity to explore the concept of Developmental Trauma Disorder, in particular, developmental delays, emotional vulnerability, "mixed maturity", cumulative cognitive deficit, and post-orphanage behavior patterns, being presented by many adoptees long after the adoption. By focusing on the neurological and psychological nature of childhood trauma, Dr. Gindis offers a unique approach to understanding the ongoing impacts of DTD and the ways in which any subsequent neuropsychological, educational, and mental health issues might be assessed. Offering an evidence-based exploration of DTD, and a critique of "conventional" approaches to rehabilitation and remediation of international adoptees, this book will be of great interest to researchers in the fields of psychology, mental health, education and child development; as well as clinicians involved in trauma treatment and international adoption.

Developmental trauma has become a controversial topic in the mental health profession, contributing to a growing rift between clinicians and academicians. The controversy centers on the impact of relational trauma during children's first three years of life. Clinicians say that developmental trauma has deep and long-lasting effect on child development that contributes to illnesses and degenerative diseases in adulthood. Academicians say that the impact of this early relational trauma is negligible, and only a part of the diagnostic and treatment picture. This book examines the historical factors that have caused this professional controversy, and how it is provoking a game-change in the way that mental health professionals conduct their practices. This book also examines the personal impact of developmental trauma, and how it can become a different kind of life game-changer. Rather being a self-fulfilling prophesy for pain and suffering, it can also serve as a catalyst for personal transformation and meaning-making. Recent research indicates that one's beliefs about stress, not stress itself, determines whether it is positive or negative. This book helps readers change their beliefs about stress, and reframe the concept of developmental trauma into developmental growth. This perspective empowers readers towards intrapsychic integration and personal transformation.

What potential does psychotherapy have for mediating the impact of childhood developmental trauma on adult life? Combining knowledge from trauma-focused work, understandings of the developmental brain and the neurodynamics of psychotherapy, the authors explain how good care and poor care in childhood influence adulthood. They provide scientific background to deepen understanding of childhood developmental trauma. They introduce principles of therapeutic change and how and why mind-body and brain-based approaches are so effective in the treatment of developmental trauma. The book focuses in particular on Pesso Boyden System Psychotherapy (PBSP) which uniquely combines and integrates key processes of mind-body work that can facilitate positive change in adult survivors of childhood maltreatment. Through client stories Petra Winnette and Jonathan Baylin describe the clinical application of PBSP and the underlying neuropsychological concepts upon which it is based. Working with Traumatic Memories to Heal Adults with Unresolved Childhood Trauma has applications relevant to psychotherapists, psychologists and psychiatrists working with clients who have experienced trauma.

This book presents an integrated, practical system for the rehabilitation and remediation of post-institutionalized international adoptees.

This practice-focused guide introduces The SmartStart Toolbox as a remedial program to help mental health professionals and adoptive parents promote the educational and social development of internationally adopted children aged 4–8. Recognizing the cultural, emotional, and cognitive needs of children who have experienced a fundamental change in their social situation of development following international adoption, The SmartStart Toolbox provides a range of family-based remedial activities which stimulate children’s thinking and learning while creating scaffolded attachment opportunities during early interactions with their adoptive families. The volume details the notions of "psychological tools" (Vygotsky) and "mediated learning experience" (Feuerstein) which form the theoretical foundations for The SmartStart Toolbox and offers step-by-step guidance on conducting activities and adapting them to the individual child. The SmartStart methodology can also be used by professionals for diagnostic purposes. This text will benefit researchers in child psychology, as well as clinicians, family therapists, social workers, and educators with an interest in child development, cognitive and language enhancement, and adoption and fostering more broadly. Adoptive parents will also benefit from this book and its focus on themes of attachment, parenting, and the development of social cognition.

This interdisciplinary book explores posthuman and psychological approaches to childhood education and well-being by examining ‘animal-assisted’ education, using qualitative approaches to understand the nuanced mechanisms which unfold in child-dog interactions. Mapping the lives of children in a primary school setting and the relationships they share with their school and classroom dog, Ted, the book provides insight into everyday child-dog encounters, the importance of touch in middle childhood and how ‘bodiment’ offers a corporeal and compassionate means to understand the rhythm and musicality in interspecies communication. In doing so, the book uses the unique orientation of ‘rhythmanalysis’, a posthuman critical theory, and new materialist orientation in multispecies empathic childhood flourishing in the future. Reflecting contemporary interest in child-dog companionship, picture books, children’s flourishing, and children’s well-being, the book provides a nuanced multi-disciplinary overview of the field. Using creative methods as well as spatial, sensory, and movement theory, this book will appeal to scholars, researchers, and academics in the fields of cognitive psychology, child and adolescent psychiatry, and primary and elementary education. Those interested in the early years will also benefit from this volume.

This book offers a paradigm shift in the framing of identity development by advancing a new, shock-sensitive framework for diverse young adult identity development after high school. The author builds on the critical theoretical contributions of Urie Bronfenbrenner and Margaret Beale Spencer that highlight the person-context nature of development and the dynamic nature of vulnerability, risk, and coping. The inclusive, policy-relevant theoretical approach emerges from the author’s mixed-methods study that examines the context-dependent identity development experiences of young adults. The book also accounts for the unique person-context dynamics during the Great Recession and COVID-19 global shocks that drive how diverse young adults make meaning of risk as they cope with the shock-related disruptions on their individual postsecondary journeys toward building their adult identities. Given that the qualitative interview component of the study occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, this research offers a unique, in-real-time vantage point from participants who are making meaning of their choices and decisions as the shock was underway. The book also tracks the heightened importance of online tools during this period and the implications of virtual contexts where developmental activities are pursued, such as online education, work, and socializing. Advancing a new, shock-sensitive, interdisciplinary theory of identity development in postsecondary journeys of diverse young adults, it will appeal to scholars and students at the graduate level working across psychology, human development, educational psychology, sociology of education, and public policy.

Now in its third edition, this classic text remains the seminal resource for in-depth information about major concepts and principles of the cultural-historical theory developed by Lev Vygotsky, his students, and colleagues, as well as three generations of neo-Vygotskian scholars in Russia and the West. Featuring two new chapters on brain development and scaffolding in the zone of proximal development, as well as additional content on technology, dual language learners, and students with disabilities, this new edition provides the latest research evidence supporting the basics of the cultural-historical approach alongside Vygotskian-based practical implications. With concrete explanations and strategies on how to scaffold young children’s learning and development, this book is essential reading for students of early childhood theory and development.