ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the impact of the constant stress arousal on the brain and the body, providing strategies to help minimize the determinantal impact and move the body's stress response from toxic to adaptive. Rigid thinking, poor generalization and integration of social-emotional skills, fractured relationships, and a heightened threat awareness-this is the brain on trauma. Children who are impacted by repeated, or complex, trauma experience high levels of toxic stress that throw their brains and bodies into a fixed state of arousal and stress. To fully understand this dynamic and the full impact of toxic stress on cognitive processes, especially within the developing brain of a child, it is helpful to know how the brain develops throughout childhood more fully. Poor emotional regulation, weak adaptive skills, fractured memories, inconsistent attention, and learning difficulties are all typical in a child who has been negatively impacted by complex developmental trauma and toxic stress.
