To qualify for CE, participants must:

• Attend entire session

• Complete course evaluation and assessment with a score of 80%

The development of a young child is profoundly influenced by experience. Experiences – good and bad - shape the organization of the brain which ultimately impacts emotional, social, cognitive and physiological functioning. Insights into this process come from understanding brain development. Trauma and neglect, which is the absence of essential developmental experiences required to express a fundamental potential of a child, are both pervasive problems in our culture. Similarly, chaos, threat and abnormal patterns of emotional, social, cognitive and physical interactions with young children lead to an array of brain-related problems with life-long implications for mental and physical health.

This presentation will review clinical work and research that can help us better understand developmental trauma, neglect and the relational problems that arise from adverse experience and then suggest new directions for clinical practice, program development and policy.