Points To Remember 2

Trauma is the psychological response to the threat of loss of life or limb.
Trauma is usually an unexpected, sudden, violent event.
Even though the traumatic event may be of short duration, the results can have long-lasting psychic effects.
The psychological effects of trauma usually affect humans’ ability to lead a full and healthy life.
Grief is the emotional response to the loss of someone or something that is loved. Trauma is the brain-based response to the threat of loss of life or safety.
When working with victims who have experienced trauma, you need to do left-brain activities such as re-telling the story in the order in which it occurred. Using right-brain activities such as talking about their feelings may trigger flashbacks.
Children who are exposed to domestic or neighborhood violence can suffer post traumatic stress.
The 7 stages of a victim’s response are: the warning phase, the alarm phase, the impact phase, the inventory phase, the rescue phase, the recovery phase, and the reconstruction phase.
How a person deals with trauma is affected by the severity and intensity of the event, the person’s preparedness, the mental attitude and health of the victim, whether he/she receives adequate support during recovery, and previous crisis experiences.
Common reactions to trauma include disbelief and shock, fear and anxiety, disorientation, inability to concentrate, apathy and emotional numbing, irritability, depression, feeling powerless, sleep disturbances, crying, headaches or stomach problems, and an increased use of drugs or alcohol.
Staying connected with our loved ones, remaining engaged in activities, and being optimistic are key factors in overcoming the stress of a traumatic event.
Long-term effects of trauma may include nightmares, inability to concentrate, flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, chronic anxiety, hyper-arousal, dissociation, feelings of hopelessness, thoughts of suicide or death, etc.
Every year in the U.S. over 5 million children experience some traumatic event in their life.
Traumatic stress can have a profound impact on the behavioral, cognitive, emotional, social, and physical well-being of a person.
Trauma which occurs in early childhood will have more severe effects than if it occurs later in life due to the rapid development of the brain in the first years of life.
When a child is exposed to chronic stressful or traumatic experiences, such as occur in a home with domestic violence, there will be permanent changes to their brain’s chemical and neural responses.
In order to modify trauma, the therapeutic interventions must activate those portions of the brain that have been altered by the trauma.
Brain damage caused by stress or trauma may cause aggression, hyperactivity, dissociation, language deficits, depression, and mental illness.
Trauma can also cause health problems such as asthma, high blood pressure, epilepsy, immune system disorders, etc.
The type of parenting a child receives has the biggest impact on how a child’s brain is organized.
Stress hormones are designed to prepare the body for fight or flight. In people who have experienced trauma, the stress hormones may be overactive.
Hyper-arousal refers to the mental and physical changes which occur when the body receives an alarm and prepares for fight or flight.
People who are hyper-aroused may act hyperactive, hypervigilant, anxious, over-reactive, have a short attention span and inability to concentrate, etc.
Dissociation is a reaction to threat where the person withdraws mentally or physically from the threatening situation. This is known as the “freeze or surrender” response.
People who are dissociating may act detached, numb, not in tune with reality, complain, have low energy, etc.
Females and young children use dissociation as an alarm response more than males or older children, who tend to use hyper-arousal more.
Teachers often misinterpret a student’s oppositional reaction to be defiance instead of a reaction to threat or danger.
There are 5 alarm states: calm, arousal, alarm, fear, and terror. Each state uses a different regulating area of the brain, a different cognitive style of thinking, and a different dissociative or hyperarousal state.
It is the use-dependent changes in the brain’s development and organization that underlie the changes in behavioral, emotional, cognitive, social, and physiological alterations following childhood trauma.
The same traumatic event may cause different adaptive styles in different children because different adaptive responses will occur depending on the child’s age, sex, previous exposure to trauma, etc.
The nature of the event will determine which adaptive response is the most adaptive.
Traumatic events of the same nature may produce different responses in the same child at different stages in his/her life.
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a clinical syndrome that may develop after extreme trauma.
People who suffer post-traumatic stress exhibit intense fear, disorganized behavior, persistent re-experiencing of the event, and physiological hyper-reactivity surrounding cues associated with the event.
The misdiagnosis of PTSD in children is common as many of the symptoms also occur in children who have ADHD, ODD (oppositional defiant disorder), anxiety, or depression.
While 3-14% of adults exposed to trauma develop PTSD, 30- 90% of children exposed to trauma develop it.
Children who experience multiple or repeated violent events, who experience actual physical injury to self or a loved one, are female, experience destruction of their home or school or community, know the perpetrator, have a low IQ, do not have a support network, or have other psychiatric disorders are at an increased risk for developing PTSD or other trauma related symptoms.
Treatment for traumatic experiences can include education regarding the normal reactions, medication, and individual counseling.
Children who are resilient have predictable and nurturing experiences in early childhood which increase their feelings of safety and support.
The same neurobiological mechanisms that make children so capable of absorbing new experiences in a short amount of time make them more vulnerable to bad experiences in their life.
Educators need to recognize that children who have experienced severe stress or trauma will show changes in their behavior and emotional functioning, as well as their ability to learn.
During the period after a trauma, the child will attempt to re-organize, re-evaluate, and restore their pre-traumatic world. We need to give them the time and tools to do this successfully.
Teachers should educate the child and their family about normal reactions to stress and trauma in order to normalize it.
Children need to be encouraged to talk about their flashbacks and nightmares every time they occur.
Teachers need to ensure that a student’s basic needs are being met in the classroom.
Adults need to ensure that the child understands the traumatic event accurately. Often children make false assumptions about the causes of major events.
Students who have suffered a traumatic event need clear, consistent expectations and discipline, clear choices, predictable routines, and a sense of control.
Young children often re-process the event by acting it out in play. This is a normal way of dealing with the event and should not be discouraged.
Teachers need to protect the traumatized child from further victimization and from cues that will trigger flashbacks of the event.
Anything a teacher can do to decrease the intensity and duration of the fear response will decrease the probability of the child developing persistent symptoms.
For survivors of trauma, life will never be the same because the person’s perceptions about the safety of the world have been changed.
It is not uncommon for victims to have delayed reactions to traumatic events.

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