If Danielle Goodwin had taken the Adverse Childhood Experiences Test as a teenager, she would have scored a perfect 10.
The ACES test was developed in 1998 by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and Kaiser Permanente in San Diego who were trying to find out whether childhood stress led to health problems later in life. The test consists of 10 “yes or no” questions designed to screen for exposure to violence, sexual abuse and neglect: “Did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often … act in a way that made you afraid that you might be physically hurt? Did an adult or person at least 5 years older than you ever touch or fondle you or have you touch their body in a sexual way? Did you often or very often feel that you didn’t have enough to eat, had to wear dirty clothes, and had no one to protect you? Or your parents were too drunk or high to take care of you?”
Each “yes” response counts for one point. The higher the score, the greater the likelihood that the test taker will experience heart disease, obesity, depression, substance abuse or some other downstream health and behavioral problem.
The ACES test is a blunt instrument. It doesn't add any additional points for neglect if, say, the neglect involved not being protected from sexual abuse committed by your mother's boyfriends, which resulted in your pregnancy at age 14, which is what happened to Danielle Goodwin. Perhaps some trauma can't be quantified.
[For more of this story, written by Stacey Solie, go to http://crosscut.com/2014/12/03/Kidsatrisk/122983/neglected-brain-2-stacey-solie/]
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