Question

Briefly describe the impact of trauma on a person's ability to understand and for retaining information

Answer 1

Trauma-informed care (TIC) involves a broad understanding of traumatic stress reactions and common responses to trauma.Trauma affects brain development, causing structural and hormonal changes that manifest in adverse physical and mental outcomes. Neuroscientists studying the brain have learned how fear and trauma influence a child’s developing brain. 3 The brains of children are very malleable because they are still building the internal connections that will help maturing children acquire new skills and adapt to changing environments. The young brain’s malleability is a strength; it can help children deal with novel, even traumatic situations. By contrast, if exposure to stress and trauma is unrelenting, the brain adapts in ways that can make learning and socialization difficult. For example, when confronted with a dangerous situation, the brain initiates the fight, flight, or freeze response. Although this response is helpful in getting through brief, stressful situations, persistent exposure to toxic stress during childhood can have serious developmental consequences that may last well past the time of stress exposure. 4 Constant exposure to stress can induce the following in children: A persistent fear response that “wears out” neural pathways Hyperarousal that causes children to overreact to nonthreatening triggers Dissociation from the traumatic event in which the child shuts down emotionally Disruptions in emotional attachment, which can be detrimental to learning

The impact of trauma on memory

When a child is exposed to complex trauma it can affect how well key brain structures work, particularly how they integrate the different dimensions of memory. In many cases the emotional and physiological echoes of a traumatic experience become stored as pieces of a memory in the limbic system, cerebellum and brain stem without any reference points. The dots are not connected i.e. the facts of the event are not connected with the physical and emotional reaction to it.

It has also been acknowledged that, in fact, the intensity that the sensory memory fragments are stored is the same intensity as they were experienced at the time. Therefore, when a child or young person is exposed or confronted with things associated with a traumatic experience from their past, they can be flooded with the full force of the sensory memory fragments that have been triggered in the present moment. Much of a traumatised child’s memory is stored in their limbic system and is therefore implicit or subconscious. Therefore these powerful feelings often occur without any awareness that what they are experiencing is from their past or of what has triggered them.

• Traumatised children may lose the ability to make sense of their experience or build narrative about their life that draws meaning and understanding – Narrative memory
• Traumatised children may not remember events that may have occurred during the week or who they were with and what they have learned - Episodic memory
• Traumatised children may have an impaired working memory – short-term memory. This impacts a system that is required to carry out complex cognitive tasks such as learning, reasoning, remembering instructions and comprehension.

More specifically, children and young people who experience:

• Neglect where their needs are ignored or inconsistently met, develop memory templates that are by definition unpredictable. These children do not have a basis or guidelines to know what is coming or how to respond to it. Therefore they are often reactive and struggle to find relationships safe.
• Abuse or violation are hurt and then blamed. These children experience their internal stress reactions being amplified for those who are supposed to care for them, establishing distorted memory templates. They will view relationships often as unable to be trusted to meet their needs of being reassured or soothed when they are aroused.