Presentation Materials: 

A4_ChildAbuse&Brain_handout.pdf

During this workshop brain research associated with child maltreatment will be examined as a way to assist attendees in designing trauma-responsive programming. The key aspect is to help attendees make connections between damaged/delayed brain organs and systems and the highly predictable behavior patterns resulting from the damage/delay. While neuroscientists studying the developmental impact of trauma on the brain have contributed scores of practical insights to help child-serving professionals better understand and treat the effects of early maltreatment, neuroscience is only useful if it can be translated into practical “everyday” concepts that make sense to service providers. This workshop will cover the five most significant effects of abuse and translate them into predictable behavioral manifestations that professionals commonly experience when working with abused children.

Workshop objectives/takeaways:

• attendees will be able to identify the five most significant effects of child abuse on the brains of developing children;


• attendees will be able to describe the behavioral results of these effects in "Monday's World" and learn to name the brain pathways involved in the behavior manifestation; and


• attendees will be able to analyze the eight essential components for trauma-responsive programming based on this research and assess the status of current programming to find opportunities for innovation.

Presenter: Frank J. Kros, executive vice president, The Children’s Guild, and president, The Upside Down Organization

Workshop synopsis:

The workshop will cover the question: Can professionals target interventions on specific brain areas to reduce problem behaviors?

Brain changes impact critical cognitive and behavioral functions including the development of impulse control, memory formation, attention, integration of emotion with language, organization of thought and action, attachment, and stress regulation. Attendees will be able to identify the area of the brain impacted by abuse and the specific contribution of that area to overall brain function.

These behavioral manifestations include aggression, impulsivity, depression, anxiety, PTSD, attachment disorder, organization of thought and action, cause and effect thinking, and accurate prediction of future consequences of behavior.

Attendees will be introduced to eight essential treatment components suggested by the neuroscience findings on abuse and the brain. These interventions focus on repairing and supporting the damaged/delayed brain areas. For each of these eight components, 3-5 specific tools are offered resulting in more than 25 low-cost or no cost tools attendees can use in “Monday’s World” to improve or enhance work with abused children.

This workshop is intended to make neuroscience practical and relevant to child-serving professionals by demonstrating the connection between how the brain responds to abuse, the results of the brain’s responses on behavior, and the interventions suggested that target repairing the brain and/or helping it to make-up lost developmental ground. By offering both understanding and “stuff attendees can use,” the workshop is designed to motivate professionals to add neuroscience research to the toolbox of resources they use to help maltreated children.