Science Friday20 Maalis 2025

The Evolving Science Of How Childhood Trauma Shapes Adults | Butterfly Memories

The framework of Adverse Childhood Experiences started with an unexpected finding over 30 years ago. How is our approach changing?

We know that experiences from our childhood, both good and bad, shape who we become as adults. But, understanding what kinds of early experiences have staying power into adulthood and the wide range of impacts they can have is an emerging science.

In the 1980s, Dr. Vincent Felitti ran a weight loss clinic in San Diego, California. He noticed that some patients who regained weight were more likely to have experienced sexual abuse in childhood.This eventually led him to conduct research on a larger scale to better understand the correlation between what he and his colleagues dubbed adverse childhood experiences, or ACES, and mental and physical health challenges later in life.

This same 10-question survey Dr. Felitti gave participants in the 1990s is still used by researchers and clinicians to assess childhood trauma. But recently, some psychology experts have begun to question how accurately the ACES framework identifies trauma in diverse populations, since it was originally developed for a mostly white and affluent study population.

Host Flora Lichtman talks with Preeti Simran Sethi, science writer and Rosalyn Carter Mental Health Journalism fellow, about her reporting for Science Friday about adverse childhood experiences.

Also, to see more butterfly stories from our listeners, visit our story from last week.

Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

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