Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs, are described as the negative life events that children are exposed to which often cause traumatic lifelong side effects.
The ACE questionnaire was put together by the Kaiser Permanente Health Clinic in San Diego and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1995 to study the effects that those traumatic events can sometimes lead to in a person's life. The questionnaire is a list of ten seemingly simple questions, things like 'did a parent or other adult ever push, grab, slap or throw something at you?' and 'did you often feel that no one in your family loved you or thought you were important or special?'. Based on the yes or no answer given to each question, test takers tally up their points (one for each 'yes') to determine their ACE score.
The results of the study were shocking. Adults that had an ACE score of 4 were seven times more likely to be alcoholics and twice as likely to be diagnosed with cancer. People who scored 6 or higher were thirty times more likely to have attempted suicide. Out of the students who took the ACE test and scored 4 or higher, more than half had learning and behavioral problems in school.
[For more of this story, written by Amber Kapiloff, go to http://www.dailybulldog.com/db...-look-at-discipline/]
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