2-119 - Childhood Adversity and Youth Outcomes: Identifying Intergenerational and Longitudinal Pathways of Risk and Resilience

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Research illustrates detrimental effects of adverse childhood experiences on youth outcomes (McLaughlin & Lambert, 2017). However, the mechanisms driving these effects across long time periods or across generations are still unclear (Margolin et al., 2015). Development of reflective and regulatory abilities, that enable individuals to correctly identify and modulate emotions and thoughts (Fonagy & Bateman, 2016), as well as supportive family relationships may be of particular importance in disrupting childhood adversities.
This symposium investigates how variability in youths’ cognitive and emotional reflective processes and family support offset the impact of early adversity on adjustment, across decades and generations. We explore a broad range of youth outcomes, including physical and mental health and risk of sexual assault. We employ longitudinal, multi-method data to prospectively assess constructs, including daily experiential sampling and in-home observations. Studies span early childhood through (when youth reach) middle adulthood.
The first study looks across generations, to show how reflective functioning among mothers who were sexually abused in childhood protect their own children against sexual assaults and maladjustment. The second study utilizes over 30-years of prospective data to illustrate how positive family relationships buffer effects of family conflict and low parental responsiveness on global health symptoms when youth are middle-aged. Our final study demonstrates the interaction of adverse childhood experiences across 10 years with daily emotional granularity and preservative cognition in late adolescence, over 10 days, to predict internalizing symptoms in early adulthood. Discussant will address risk/resilience in youths’ health, delineating pathways of the intergenerational transmission of adversity.

Sub Unit

• Family Context & Processes

Chair

• Reout Arbel, University of Haifa

Discussant

• Gayla Margolin, University of Southern California

Individual Presentations

• Adverse Childhood Experiences and Symptoms in Early Adulthood: The Role of Adolescents’ Emotion Differentiation - Presenting Author: Reout Arbel, University of Haifa; Non-Presenting Author: Kelly F. M. Kazmierski, University of Southern California; Non-Presenting Author: Hannah L Schacter, University of Southern California

• A 30-year Longitudinal Study of Childhood Family Conflict, Positive Family Relationships, and Health in Adulthood - Presenting Author: Michelle C. Ramos, California State University, Fullerton

• Intergenerational Impacts of Child Sexual Abuse on Children’s Adjustment: Maternal Reflective Functioning as a Protective Factor - Presenting Author: Chloe T. Cohen, University of California, Irvine; Non-Presenting Author: Corey Pettit, University of California, Irvine; Non-Presenting Author: Karin Ensink, University of Laval; Non-Presenting Author: Laurel Benjamin, University of California, Irvine; Non-Presenting Author: Jennifer Yuen, University of California, Irvine; Non-Presenting Author: Mackenzie Brandman, University of California, Irvine; Non-Presenting Author: Breana Cervantes, University of California, Irvine; Non-Presenting Author: Lina Normandin, University of California, Irvine; Non-Presenting Author: Mary Target, University College London; Non-Presenting Author: Peter Fonagy, University College London; Non-Presenting Author: Jessica Borelli, University of California, Irvine