Assessing toxic stress and learning readiness in kindergarteners

This presentation will explain trauma theory as it relates to children's thinking and behavior from adverse experiences and toxic stress. Exposure to toxic stress in children can occur from a variety of sources and its cumulative effect can have profound negative lifelong consequences. Toxic stress can include physical and emotional abuse or neglect, parental or caregiver mental illness and/or substance abuse that impairs the caregiver's ability to attend to the needs of their children, and other chronic stresses, severe enough to alter the normal functioning in the growing brain and disrupt healthy development. In 2012, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) through their Call to Action, not only recognized the profound urgency for addressing the potentially lifelong threats to the well-being of the child from the adverse effects of toxic stress, but calls for interventions to protect the child's growing brain. This presentation will describe how this Call to Action was addressed by assessing 176 kindergarteners for stress and maltreatment in an urban school in New Haven, CT. Results of this screening will be discussed highlighting specific intervention strategies for early intervention, including drama therapy, with the intent of ameliorating potential mental health complications, negatively impacting on childhood learning.