Re-thinking Adversity: Early Life Stress from the Child's Perspective

Discovering the processes through which early life experiences affect children's development is critically important for developing prevention and interventions for youth exposed to adversity, and also for understanding the basic science of human development and learning. Nearly all research on early experience and socio-emotional development has been anchored on specific events that have (or have not) occurred in a child's life. Yet, there is increasing evidence that children's perceptions of their own experiences and the meaning they construe from what has happened to them can deepen our understanding of their behavioral, health, and learning outcomes. How can we better embrace this real, albeit messy, complexity of human development? This presentation aims to serve as a catalyst for thinking about these kinds of new future research directions.