Beyond Cumulative Risk: A Dimensional Approach to Childhood Adversity
Open accessAbstract
Children who have experienced environmental adversity—such as abuse, neglect, or poverty—are more likely to develop physical and mental health problems, perform poorly at school, and have difficulties in social relationships than children who have not encountered adversity. What is less clear is how and why adverse early experiences exert such a profound influence on children’s development. Identifying developmental processes that are disrupted by adverse early environments is the key to developing better intervention strategies for children who have experienced adversity. Yet much existing research relies on a cumulative-risk approach that is unlikely to reveal these mechanisms. This approach tallies the number of distinct adversities experienced to create a risk score. This risk score fails to distinguish between distinct types of environmental experiences, implicitly assuming that very different experiences influence development through the same underlying mechanisms. We advance an alternative model. This novel approach conceptualizes adversity along distinct dimensions, emphasizes the central role of learning mechanisms, and distinguishes between different forms of adversity that might influence learning in distinct ways. A key advantage of this approach is that learning mechanisms provide clear targets for interventions aimed at preventing negative developmental outcomes in children who have experienced adversity.
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The developmental consequences of deprivation and threat are at least partially distinct.
“Although experiences of deprivation often co-occur with experiences of threat (i.e., abuse), the developmental consequences of deprivation and threat are at least partially distinct.(7–9)”
From Neglect as a violation of species-expectant experience: neurodevelopmental consequences (2017) · cites this paper as [8]
Deprivation is the core feature that distinguishes neglect from trauma and abuse.
“Deprivation is the core feature of neglect that distinguishes it from other forms of adversity, such as trauma and abuse, where the most prominent feature is harm or threat of harm to the child.”
From Neglect as a violation of species-expectant experience: neurodevelopmental consequences (2017) · cites this paper as [8]
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Research works printed but not linked: 5
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- [2]McLaughlin KA Sheridan MA Gold AL Lambert HK Heleniak C Duys A Shechner T Wojcieski Z Pine DS in press Maltreatment exposure, brain structure, and fear conditioning in children Neuropsychopharmacology This paper examines fear learning mechanisms in children exposed to threatening early environments PMC4908632 26677946
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“Similarly, the Dimensional Model of Adversity and Psychopathology proposed by McLaughlin and Sheridan [15] emphasised that threat (e.”
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- Authors
- McLaughlin, K. A., & Sheridan, M. A.
- Affiliations
- University of Washington (US)
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
- Corresponding author
- McLaughlin, Katie A.
- Venue
- Current Directions in Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2016-08
- Volume
- 25
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 239-245
- ISSN
- 0963-7214 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-8721
- PMC
- PMC5070918
- OpenAlex
- W2495635308
- Cited by
- 906
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 153 · 2025: 128 · 2024: 130 · 2023: 122 · 2022: 106 · 2021: 101 · 2020: 67 · 2019: 48 · 2018: 32 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 42.80
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Current Directions in Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH103291, R01MH106482)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U54HD083091)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Resilience and Mental Health
- Keywords
- cumulative risk, adverse childhood experiences, environmental adversity, child development, learning mechanisms, developmental mechanisms, intervention strategies, abuse and neglect, poverty, developmental prevention
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