ABSTRACT
Although chronic, adverse experiences and traumatic experiences tend to afflict specific neural regions, there remains much variation in individuals’ reactions. Many factors affect a child’s ability to tolerate stress. These include prior history of trauma, whether parenting has been supportive or hostile, and other genetic or learned competencies and skills (Goslin et al., 2013; Lieberman & van Horn, 2008). Temperament and inborn stress reactivity also leave an imprint (Phillips, Fox, & Gunnar, 2011). So may innate cognitive ability, though it is often hard to separate out environmental factors that decrease cognitive functioning and IQ from genetic potential (Beckett et al., 2006; Saltzman, Weems, & Carrion, 2006; Shonk & Cicchetti, 2001). Each of these pre-event factors serves either to mitigate or exacerbate a child’s response and recovery and is important to understand as part of the contextual landscape that affects treatment.
