Heather Twitty, MA, LPC attended the International Trauma Conference this year in Boston, MA. One of the esteemed presenters was Bruce Perry, MD, Ph.D. who is the Senior Fellow of the Child Trauma Academy (www.ChildTrauma.org), a consultant to the FBI, the former Chief of Psychiatry at Texas Children’s Hospital, and former Vice-Chairman for Research in the Department of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Perry is the author of “The boy who was raised as a dog and other stories from a child psychiatrist’s notebook: What traumatized children can teach us about loss, love and healing”. During this year’s conference Dr. Perry discussed how the brain changes in response to abuse and how the brain may not develop as needed when children are neglected. Dr. Perry highlighted the following issues as being very important in considering brain development:
1. The developing brain is very vulnerable to the effects of chemicals when in utero- such as alcohol, nicotine and other drugs.
2. After birth the primary stress regulator for the infant/child is the caregiver. The caregiver’s ability and consistency in providing appropriate care and nurturance for physical and emotional needs is massively important.
3. A variety of things can interfere in the process of providing care and nurturance, such as caregiver depression, caregiver illness, caregiver separation from child, caregiver aggression/abuse and caregiver lack of involvement or neglect, among others.
4. Difficulties such as those listed above significantly impact the child’s developing brain, and can even change it neurobiologically!
5. It’s not only the presence of bad things happening, but the absence of good things happening that affects development. Neglect or inconsistent care can result in disorganized brain development.