Academic Effects of Trauma
Early childhood trauma can have long-lasting academic implications and effects, especially if the child's learning environment is not sensitive to their social/emotional health and well-being. These academic implications can cascade throughout the lifespan, far past the early education years.
Young children who experience trauma on average have...
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Lower standardized test scores¹
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Lower GPAs
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Higher rates of truancy, suspension, and expulsion²
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Higher chances of later drop-out
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Future difficulties finding and keeping employment
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Decreased ability to concentrate and absorb new information³
Children with a history of involvement with Child Protective Services perform at about the 30th percentile, even after controlling for other factors like race, poverty, and gender.⁴
In the United States, the rate of expulsion from state-funded pre-K programs is over three times as high as the rates for K-12.⁵
This video illustrates trauma's effect on academic achievement, especially in how it hinders the development of high level cognitive ability from both a student's and teacher's perspective via hypervigilance, not as a result of lack of students' efforts to pay attention and try their best.
Trauma is manifested in these academic effects through two major pathways: mental illness and neuropsychological effects. These two pathways are not separate, but instead are also related and intertwined, making detangling the two a complex task that is still being studied.
Via Increased Risk for Mental Illness
Early childhood trauma increases the risk of the child developing mental illnesses such as PTSD, ADHD, suicidal ideation, anxiety, depression, and conduct disorder. In turn, mental illness has been linked with lower school achievement and increased risk of drop out. In this way, mental illness can mediate the relationship between trauma and poor academic outcomes.⁶
Via Neuropsychological Effects
As discussed on the effects of trauma page, trauma can have widespread neurobiological impacts on children's brains and bodies. In this way, effects like decreased size of the hippocampus and disturbances in cortical regions can result in difficulties in concentration, emotion regulation, and sustained attention on school, especially in states of hypervigilance, all of which affect academic performance.⁷