Professor Helen Minnis FMedSci talks about the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) load, what it means for a child’s development, and one discovery that changed her entire perspective.
The bigger the load that a child carries of ACEs, the bigger their risk of developing depression and heart disease as an adult. However, not all people with a big ACE load have health problems. So what was going on?
Her twin-study on the association of maltreatment and neurodevelopmental disorders asked the question: “Are abused and neglected children more likely to have multiple neurodevelopmental problems?” And the answer was “an even more stark yes than I’d imagined,” Professor Minnis says.
This talk was part of the event "Talks from new Fellows 2022".
Professor Helen Minnis FMedSci is Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (Mental Health & Wellbeing) at the University of Glasgow. She has had a longstanding clinical and research focus on the psychiatric problems of abused and neglected children. Currently her focus is on intervention research, including a randomised controlled trial of an infant mental health service for young children in foster care and a randomised controlled trial of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy for primary school-aged children in adoptive or foster placements. She is also conducting behavioural genetics research focussed on the role of abuse and neglect and its overlap with neurodevelopment across the life-course.
Find out more about Professor Minnis: acmedsci.ac.uk/fellows/fellow...
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