Students with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) often display significant intrusive behaviors and need specific behavioral, social-emotional, and academic supports. Given the background of trauma consistent with a RAD diagnosis, it is imperative that school personnel understand the social-emotional behavioral supports needed to help children with…

Across the country, placements in foster care are rising. In 2016, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that 273,539 children in the U.S. entered foster care. In 34 percent of those cases, parental drug abuse was one of the factors leading to the child's removal from their family. Additionally, the U.S. Substance Abuse and…

Recovery from a mild-to-moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a challenging process for injured persons and their families. Guided by attachment theory, we investigated whether relationship conflict, social support, or sense of belonging were associated with psychological functioning. Community-dwelling persons with TBI (N = 75) and their…

Children's exposure to violence is a national crisis. The high prevalence of exposure to violence in infancy and early childhood has implications for lifelong health and development because early experiences are most influential in shaping the structure and functioning of the brain, the quality of attachments and other relationships, and the…

Neuroscientists have long believed that there are sensitive periods in development during which the effects of experience play a critical role. And developmental psychologists have argued for the importance of early experience in the first years of life as being critical for brain and behavioral development. Most of the neuroscience research…