I developed an interest in human psychology and human behavior after taking Psych 101 in high school during the beta-testing period for dual enrollment.
I went off to college with the intention of getting my BA in Psychology and a minor in early childhood development. I nearly finished that degree, but my heart won out and I married my college sweetheart (no regrets) and his first job moved us away from my university my senior year.
When I made the decision a few years later to go back and finish my degree, I knew I had no desire to work in research, get a PhD, or teach, so the psychology degree felt like the wrong direction despite still being time well spent.
I ended up, instead, starting over and returning to my first love—writing!
In 2008, I graduated with a BS in Journalism and a minor in psychology, and began freelance writing and editing while my children were young. Years later, after my husband joined the Army, and we had experienced many moves and deployments, I began to witness firsthand how the hardships of military life impacted our children and how much books seemed to help. While living overseas, I decided to enroll in a Master's of Crisis and Trauma Counseling program to explore this more.
After completing that degree, I did 2 years of intensive postgraduate study in neuroscience with a focus on neuroplasticity and polyvagal theory. I loved learning about the different areas of the brain and how they are involved or affected by our life experiences, biological illnesses, brain injury, and even internal dialogue, and how chronic stress physiology affected the mind and body.
I have a special interest in the science behind how reading lowers the stress response and stimulates the brain to activate new, healthy neural pathways, helping children cope with and recover from traumatic situations.
When children experience trauma, such as abuse, neglect, or other adverse childhood experiences we call ACE's, it changes the way the brain develops. The areas of the brain that play a role in memory, attention, language, and self-control are still developing in childhood, which makes them particularly sensitive to stress. What a 5-year-old considers stress, from their child brain perspective and understanding, can seem silly from an adult perspective, but a psychic injury can take place none-the-less.
Trauma is basically 'too much too fast' or 'too little for too long' while being deprived of the co-regulating resources needed to process their experience in a healthy way. In a child's world, this can look like everything from moving house, getting a new sibling, divorce, deployment, long-term hunger, etc. Since children don't have an adult brain’s perspective to process the event, this trauma can go unnoticed into adulthood.
Research has shown that trauma can alter neural pathways. Children who have experienced high stress often show differences in the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in planning and decision-making, and in the hippocampus, which is important for memory (Teicher & Samson, 2016).
Trauma can cause their brains to be constantly on alert, which can make learning, focusing, and controlling impulses much more difficult than for children without these experiences (Shonkoff et al., 2012). Trauma hijacks and takes offline the system that children need to succeed in school and manage emotions effectively.
Children (and adults) who have experienced trauma may have trouble remembering instructions, organizing tasks, or staying focused on reading or math activities. They may misread social cues or respond strongly to small frustrations. This does not mean they are lazy or unintelligent. Their brains have adapted to high-stress environments, which can make tasks that feel simple for other children much more challenging (Anda et al., 2006). Over time, repeated trauma or unaddressed past trauma patterns can reinforce these adaptations, affecting both academic performance and emotional regulation.
Reading interventions can be particularly helpful for these children. Reading engages multiple areas of the brain, including regions for language, memory, attention, and social-emotional processing (Horowitz-Kraus & Hutton, 2015). The general rule is that when one system of the brain is engaged, the other can not be. So, if the fight, flight, freeze (F3) system in running the show, they can't focus on anything that requires the frontal lobe. However, the reverse is also true. When the frontal lobe is on and functioning, the F3 system dampens down.
And since the brain is neuroplastic (changeable), this means that under the right conditions these trauma wirings can be replaced with healthy new cells and pathways.
Reading strengthens neural connections, which is essentially a workout for the brain. This workout increases BDNF(brain-derived neurotrophic factor), which are the building blocks for new brain cells and new healthy neural connections. For children affected by trauma, reading can help rebuild pathways that were disrupted by trauma/stress. It gives their brains practice with attention, memory, and sequencing in a predictable and safe environment.
And when they are read to or read with a loving caregiver or teacher, they are getting the emotional co-regulation which helps calm down the overactive nervous system, lowering that alert mode and stress chemistry so that the brain can process, learn and grow (Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002).
While reading alone is not a 'cure' for trauma, it is a valuable tool in trauma-informed care with a vast array of other helpful benefits, and it drives my passion for writing and for childhood trauma awareness and intervention.
References
Anda, R. F., Felitti, V. J., Bremner, J. D., Walker, J. D., Whitfield, C., Perry, B. D., ... & Giles, W. H. (2006). The enduring effects of abuse and related adverse experiences in childhood. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 256(3), 174–186. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-005-0624-4
Horowitz‑Kraus, T., & Hutton, J. S. (2018). Brain connectivity in children is increased by the time they spend reading books and decreased by the length of exposure to screen‑based media. Acta Paediatrica, International Journal of Paediatrics, 107(4), 685‑693. https://doi.org/10.1111/apa.14176
Sénéchal, M., & LeFevre, J. (2002). Parental involvement in the development of children’s reading skill: A five-year longitudinal study. Child Development, 73(2), 445–460. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00417
Shonkoff, J. P., Garner, A. S., Siegel, B. S., Dobbins, M. I., Earls, M. F., McGuinn, L., ... & Wood, D. L. (2012). The lifelong effects of early childhood adversity and toxic stress. Pediatrics, 129(1), e232–e246. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2011-2663
Teicher, M. H., & Samson, J. A. (2016). Annual research review: Enduring neurobiological effects of childhood abuse and neglect. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 57(3), 241–266. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12507