Research Institute of Child Development and Education, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Levvel Academic Center for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol. 2022 Mar;50(3):295-308. doi: 10.1007/s10802-021-00847-4. Epub 2021 Sep 5.
This study is the first to distinguish two possible predictive directions between trauma exposure and executive functioning in children in a community sample. The sample consists of 1006 children from two time points with a seven years' time interval of a longitudinal Dutch birth cohort study, the ABCD-study (Van Eijsden et al., 2011). We analyzed the longitudinal associations between trauma exposure and executive functioning using structural equation modeling. The results demonstrated that (after controlling for prenatal substance exposure and mothers' educational level) trauma exposure before age 5 is predictive of poorer executive functioning at age 12 and trauma exposure between age 6 and 12. However, the association between executive functioning at age 5 and trauma exposure between age 6 and 12 was not statistically significant. Our results indicate that early life trauma exposure has a long term impact on later executive functioning and not the other way around. On top of that, trauma exposure seems to accumulate across childhood when children are exposed to a traumatic event before the age of 5. When looking at the potential moderating role of parenting behavior we found no evidence for such a moderating effect of parenting behavior. Our findings showed that children exposed to trauma early in life may experience problems in executive functioning later in life and they seem at higher risk for cumulative trauma exposure. Clinical practice should take this into account in both the way they provide (early) mental health care and in prevention and recognition of early trauma exposure.
这项研究首次在社区样本中区分了创伤暴露与儿童执行功能之间的两种可能的预测方向。该样本由两个时间点的 1006 名儿童组成，时间间隔为七年，是一项纵向荷兰出生队列研究（ABCD 研究）（Van Eijsden 等人，2011 年）。我们使用结构方程模型分析了创伤暴露与执行功能之间的纵向关联。结果表明（在控制产前物质暴露和母亲教育水平后），5 岁前的创伤暴露与 12 岁时较差的执行功能有关，6 岁至 12 岁之间的创伤暴露也与较差的执行功能有关。然而，5 岁时的执行功能与 6 岁至 12 岁之间的创伤暴露之间的关联在统计学上并不显著。我们的结果表明，早期生活中的创伤暴露对以后的执行功能有长期影响，而不是相反。除此之外，当孩子在 5 岁之前经历创伤事件时，创伤暴露似乎会在整个童年时期积累。当我们观察养育行为的潜在调节作用时，我们没有发现养育行为有这种调节作用的证据。我们的研究结果表明，早期生活中经历过创伤的儿童可能在以后的生活中出现执行功能问题，并且他们似乎更容易遭受累积性创伤暴露。临床实践应该在提供（早期）心理健康护理以及预防和识别早期创伤暴露的方式上考虑到这一点。
