e-mail
I’ve been reading with great interest posts by my fellow blogger, Angela, on the Ukraine Adoption Blog. She is currently talking about ADHD, its causes and the likelihood of occurence in adoptive children.
Adrienne, over on the Russia Adoption Blog has also covered this subject, specifically how malnutrition may increase the likelihood of ADHD.
Well, I just had to chime in. Current professional wisdom is that ADHD has both genetic and environmental components at the root of its “cause”.
The other current wisdom on ADHD is that adopted children have a greater chance of having ADHD than the general population. There is much speculation on why that is. And the answers usually include one of two explanations — either the biological parents’ genetics, or an environment of poor nutrition and lack of stimulation. The truth is, not enough research has been done to know how right those explanations are for adoptive populations.
Here’s one more speculation — trauma can play a factor. Let me explain…
While trolling the internet tonight, I stumbled along a website calledThe Premature Infant. I was drawn to this website because of an article I read by the site’s author, Dianne Maroney, RN on Attachment and Special Needs Children. In it, Ms. Maroney makes a great case for the importance of focusing diligently on bonding with a special needs child.
But it was this article on Ms. Maroney’s website that caught my eye: Recognizing the Potential Effect of Stress and Trauma on Premature Infants in the NICU: How Outcomes are Affected? In this article, Ms. Maroney summarizes the existing research on psychological and emotional developmental issues of premature infants. She concludes that chronic stress and trauma have not been researched with this population. Yet this population has a much higher incident rate of psychiatric disorders than their peers.
In all, 28% displayed some type of psychiatric disorder compared to nine percent of their peers.
Of those with psychiatric disorders, the most common was ADHD, with children who had been premature infants having more than twice the chance of developing ADHD than their peers. Hmmm…that made my ol’ brain cells fire. Is ADHD genetic if prematurity has such a significant impact? And what do malnutrition and lack of stimulation have to do with it?
What do premature infants and many adoptive children have in common? Chronic stress and trauma. Ms. Maroney goes on to describe the potential for evoking chronic stress and trauma in NICU units. And to define the research that she (and I’m in agreement with her) believes needs to be done.
Trauma, and its impacts are far-reaching. On this the adoptive community and parents of premature infants can agree. Strong therapeutic parenting with a firm grasp of attachment and trauma disorders, is the best tool we parents have.
Thanks Dianne — your article has sparked me to want to learn more about trauma as the powerful environmental impact I believe it is, and to suggest through whatever avenue that I have that you continue to push for this necessary research — for premature and adoptive kids everywhere!
Hyperactivity is sometimes part of the trauma response in children – ie, it’s sometimes the result of a kind of childhood PTSD. It’s seen in a lot of kids who’ve experienced abuse or neglect early on.
Bruce Perry, who researches the effects of trauma on children’s brain development, describes it as being stuck in the “fight or flight” response. That is, when a child experiences intense or repetitive trauma, the floods of neurochemicals (from the “fight or flight” response) can result in sensitisation of those parts of the brain, causing them to become more sensitive to future stressful events. Perry calls this “how states become traits”. In other words, repeated “switching-on” of this adaptive fear response can result in the fear state persisting long after it’s needed. The brain’s baseline arousal level is heightened.
You see this especially in children’s arousal, hypervigilance & hypersensitivity.
It’s interesting that a lot of adopted children seem to have difficulties with hyperactivity. A number of professionals believe it’s to do with the separation trauma. Most children who are adopted as babies do very well, but some seem a little more fragile than others, & it’s probably because they experience separation from their birthmother as very traumatic (not to mention the many other separations & traumas, big or small, that our kids experience).
The child’s very vulnerable brain is stuck in the trauma response, & is actually hyperaroused.
The way to deal with it is to accept that the child’s brain is
overaroused & can’t calm itself very well. That is, her “baseline”
level of arousal is set higher than it needs to be, PLUS her ability
to self-regulate, & get it back to baseline once it’s been sent off is
poor.
If you want to know some more, check out Dr Bruce Perry’s website http://www.childtrauma.org, or check out my website (attachment pages), which will be up & running by the end of the week – http://www.djeffrey.id.au.
Cheers,
Debbie