Cognition

It is important to realize that the effects of trauma on learning and behavior have become increasingly significant and consistent in its descriptions of the cognitive and behavioral alterations following exposure to trauma. From young children to adults, trauma can alter the way people view themselves, the world around them, and how they process information, behave and respond to our environment. Without appropriate intervention, these cognitive processes and behavioral responses can lead to learning deficiencies, performance problems, and problematic behavior (Kuban & Steele, 2008).

Research by Perry and Szalavitz (2006) has shown that victims of childhood abuse and combat veterans have experienced physical changes to their hippocampus, the area of the brain that involves reasoning, linear thinking, analysis, learning, memory and the ability to experience. The hippocampus also works closely with the medial prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain that regulates our emotional response to fear and stress. A traumatized child or adolescent’s predominant processing of trauma occurs in the medial prefrontal cortex, the mid and limbic areas of the brain, which deals with non-verbal information. The child or adolescent who remains or is frozen in a state of arousal due to past or current trauma has difficulty in cognitive processes. Patients with PTSD often have impairments in one or both of these brain regions. Studies of children by van der Kolk, McFarlane, and Weisaeth (1996) have found that these impairments can lead to problems with learning and academic achievement. According to Kuban and Steele (2008), a child or adolescent following trauma exposure will have difficulty processing verbal information. The traumatized children will focus on nonverbal cues when they are in constant fear and hypervigilance.

                 http://www.4thmedia.org/2014/07/israels-incremental-genocide-in-the-gaza-ghetto/

          Kuban and Steele (2008) also found something very crucial in understanding traumatized children. If a child who has been traumatized remains in an aroused state of fear and finds it difficult to process verbal information, it then becomes difficult to follow directions, to recall what was heard, to make sense out of what is being said. Focusing, attending, retaining and recalling verbal information becomes very difficult. It is to say that cognitive dysfunction involving memory and learning. With trauma, ‘A’ students might become ‘C’ students; severe reactions cause others to fail altogether. Trauma also causes inability to concentrate. Children who once could complete two to three different tasks at school now have difficulty with a single task.

http://cannablogna.com/2014/04/01/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-in-children-and-adults-hope-with-cannabis-treatment/