Adverse Childhood Experiences and Grade Retention in a National Sample of US Children*

Abstract

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) include extreme economic hardship, abuse, neglect, household and family dysfunction, and exposure to community violence. Children with ACEs are at a higher risk of developing mental, physical, and developmental disorders that can lead to difficulty in school. Using the 2012 National Survey of Children's Health, we use multivariate logistic regression to examine the association between ACEs and grade retention and the moderating effects of race/ethnicity on this relationship. Results indicate that specific ACEs are related to higher rates of grade retention (economic hardship, parental incarceration, neighborhood violence, and witnessing domestic violence). Children reporting three or more ACEs were at a significantly higher risk of grade retention compared to children with zero reported ACEs. Further, patterns differed among black children in the sample with higher numbers of ACEs not increasing retention rates for black children compared to white children. This study improves our understanding of the relationship between ACEs and grade retention, but also raises questions about differing patterns among racially and ethnically diverse student populations that warrants further study.

Adverse Childhood Experiences in Latinx Families: A Comparison between Intraracial and Interracial Families

“…Interracial marriages are increasingly acceptable in the U.S., with the Latinx population leading the highest proportion of interracial marriages. However, the fact that children in interracial families experiencing significantly higher ACEs than intraracial families is concerning, considering that ACEs exposure is associated with compromised individual health [18], behavioral health [60], and other developmental outcomes [7,9]. Therefore, developing culturally responsive ACEs prevention and intervention strategies to break the cycle of trauma are urgently needed to improve the population's health and well-being.…”

“…Following the ground-breaking Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Study [1], research has suggested profound impacts of ACEs on children and adolescents' developmental outcomes, including self-harm [2], suicidality [3], internalizing problems [4][5][6], delinquency [7,8], poor school performance [9], and compromised functioning and overall mental health and wellbeing [10][11][12][13]. ACEs can have immediate impacts on young children' health and behavioral health outcomes, such as increased internalizing and externalizing symptoms [14], compromised cognitive skills and increased attention and social problems [15], as well as poor health outcomes [16].…”

Impact of child-centered play therapy on the mindful expressions and social–emotional competencies of Head Start preschoolers.

“…Preschool children from disadvantaged backgrounds often face increased hardships throughout their lives as a result of being disadvantaged, such as difficulty developing social-emotional competencies, difficulty with school functioning, and problematic behaviors (Bethell et al, 2014;Blodgett & Lanigan, 2018;Cronholm et al, 2015;Crouch et al, 2019;Hinojosa et al, 2019;Jimenez et al, 2016;Kerker et al, 2015;D. C. Ray et al, 2020).…”

A Global View of Women, Prison, and Aftercare: A Call for Reform

“…They often suffer from emotional and behavioral problems (Sharratt, 2014). Research confirms that children of incarcerated parents are more likely than other children to exhibit sleep disruptions and depression (Provencher & Conway, 2019;Wildeman et al, 2018), anger (Ruhland et al, 2020), poor school performance (Hinojosa et al, 2019;Shaw, 2019), delinquent behavior (NeMoyer et al, 2019, and juvenile detention (Giordano et al, 2019;Young & Jefferson Smith, 2019). The effects depend on both the child's age during the parental incarceration and the length of time in which the parent was incarcerated (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2015).…”