ABSTRACT
Over the last several decades, researchers have increasingly recognized that children affected by trauma experience more extensive and profound changes than adults, who conceivably have developed more adaptations to stress. Children lack the cognitive and behavioral capacities to understand and respond to traumatic circumstances effectively, and as such, these experiences have lasting, and often devastating, consequences. This chapter aims to define and describe stress and trauma, with a specific emphasis on the effects of early childhood stress that increase the risk for developmental trauma.
