The investigation of risk and protective factors influencing the healthy growth and development of children is a pivotal focus in child welfare research. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) encompass various traumatic life events in childhood that si...
The investigation of risk and protective factors influencing the healthy growth and development of children is a pivotal focus in child welfare research. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) encompass various traumatic life events in childhood that significantly jeopardize development and adaptation, presenting long-term and cumulative consequences. Two prominent approaches, namely the cumulative effect model and the latent class model, are employed to tackle ACEs. While the cumulative effect model considers the quantitative accumulation of ACEs, the latent class model focuses on qualitative differences between types of ACEs. Recognizing their respective strengths and limitations, this study adopts a comprehensive approach by considering both models.
However, existing domestic studies exhibit limitations. Previous research predominantly concentrated on individual experiences, such as abuse, neglect, and school violence, with comprehensive examinations of ACEs at an early stage. Moreover, studies have primarily aligned with either the cumulative effect or the latent class model, neglecting parallel exploration. Additionally, the scarcity of studies considering the influence of protective factors on child development within each model is a notable gap.
This study strives to address these gaps by investigating the results and implications of both the cumulative effect model and the latent class model. It explores how quantitative and qualitative differences in ACEs influence children's development, considering the moderating effect of protective factors. The study scrutinizes the path through which cumulative scores and patterns of ACEs impact health, behavior, and cognitive and social development. Developmental outcomes encompass subjective health, academic achievement, career maturity, problem behavior, and school life adaptation. Main and moderating effects of internal and external protective factors, including self-regulation ability, positivity, interpersonal relationship skills, and parent-child relationships, are assessed.
The research questions guiding this study are:
How do ACEs manifest in children and adolescents?
What impact ACEs have on child development?
What role do internal and external protective factors play in influencing the impact of ACEs on child development?
To address these questions, data from the 2nd Dream Survey of Korea Future Generation(2019) by World Vision Korea were utilized. The analysis involved 2,600 children and adolescents under 18. Quantitative methods such as descriptive statistics, structural equation models, and latent class analysis were applied. A latent moderated structural equation, based on the distributional approach, was used for moderating effect analysis. Additionally, a three-step approach confirmed variations in the effects of protective factors on child development based on ACEs types identified through latent class analysis.
The analysis results for each research problem are summarized as follows. Firstly, ACEs demonstrated multidimensionality alongside cumulativeness. Nearly 60% of Korean children and adolescents experienced one or more ACEs, and 13.8% of the children reported four or more experiences, confirming a significant number of groups displaying cumulativeness. Concurrently, latent class analysis divided the experiences into four latent groups: high-risk type, family risk type, abuse risk type, and low-risk type. Among these groups, the high-risk type was the least prevalent, accounting for 2.5% of the total, but exhibited the highest cumulative score average (9.444 points). The family risk type constituted 4.3% of the total, with a moderate cumulative score (3.427), highly reporting experiences such as imprisonment of family members, depression or suicide attempts, parental separation, or emergency crises. The abuse risk type represented 19.7% of the total, with a moderate cumulative score (4.289), displaying a higher probability of experiencing emotional neglect and a prevalence of abuse or violence experiences. Finally, the low-risk type constituted the largest proportion (73.4%), but had the lowest cumulative score (0.419).
Secondly, the cumulative effect model and the latent class model effectively explained the impact of ACEs on child development. Analysis under the cumulative effect model revealed that higher cumulative scores of ACEs correlated with more negative outcomes in all developmental aspects. In the latent class model, the high-risk type exhibited more negative results in career maturity, subjective health, and subjective academic achievement compared to all other groups. The abuse risk type showed lower results in school life adaptation, career maturity, and subjective health than the low-risk type, while they showed lower children's problem behavior than the low-risk type and family risk type. Thus, it was affirmed that ACEs negatively affected child development, as demonstrated by both the cumulative effect model and the latent class model. However, the latent class model indicated that the types showing significant differences are different for each developmental outcomes. Particularly, in the case of problem behavior, the abuse risk type showed significant negativity compared to the family risk type.
Thirdly, in both the cumulative effect model and the latent class model, it was found that protective factors had a positive impact on child development. In the cumulative effect model, self-regulation ability exhibited positive effects on subjective academic achievement, school life adaptation, career maturity, and problem behavior (excluding subjective health), while positiveness showed positive main effects on all developmental outcomes. Interpersonal skills had positive effects on school life adaptation and career maturity, and parent-child relationship showed positive effects on school life adaptation. Regarding the interaction between ACEs and protective factors, interpersonal ability has a positive effect on subjective academic achievement, which diminished as ACEs increased. In the latent class model, self-regulation ability showed positive effects on subjective academic achievement, school life adaptation, and career maturity, while positiveness had positive effects on all developmental outcomes. Interpersonal relationship skills and parent-child relationships showed positive effects on school life adaptation. Regarding the moderating effect of protective factors, a significant difference was observed between the high-risk type and the other types in the effect of self-regulation ability on subjective health and subjective academic achievement. These results indicate that in both the cumulative effect model and the latent class model, as suggested by the compensatory model, when the level of ACEs is the same, higher protective factors in children lead to more positive outcomes in each developmental area. However, in the latent class model, as suggested by the protective model, the positive effect of self-regulation ability was greater than other types in the high-risk type, which reported the most ACEs, particularly in subjective health and subjective academic achievement.
This study is significant as it examines the cumulativeness and patterns of ACEs, including abuse, neglect, family dysfunction, and school and community violence experienced by children and adolescents in our society. It empirically verifies how these quantitative and qualitative differences affect children's developmental outcomes. The analysis, based on nationally representative data, expands the scope of ACEs to a multidimensional concept beyond the family, including schools and communities. Additionally, this study is meaningful as it explores the effects of ACEs on child development from a parallel perspective, while simultaneously examining the effects of individual internal and external protective factors based on the theory of resilience.
Accordingly, this study holds practical and policy implications. Firstly, it confirms that ACEs exhibit both cumulative and multidimensional characteristics. Based on this understanding, the study proposes the planning and provision of social welfare services, considering the patterns, characteristics, and degree of accumulation of ACEs. Secondly, to facilitate the healthy growth and development of children and adolescents who have experienced ACEs, an approach is suggested to strengthen both internal and external protective factors, in addition to direct treatment interventions for trauma. Notably, higher-level self-regulation ability of the high-risk type demonstrates more positive effects on subjective health and subjective academic achievement than other types. However, due to the high level of ACEs, the high-risk type tends to lack both internal and external protective factors. Thus, there is a need for additional interventions to bolster their self-regulation ability. Thirdly, the study underscores the necessity of establishing an integrated policy and implementation system for the prevention and response to ACEs. To achieve this, it proposes linking and reestablishing related systems to facilitate the coordination of prevention, investigation, education, and intervention in response to ACEs. Finally, as in the United States and the United Kingdom, we should conduct a public survey on ACEs, sharing the results with relevant institutions and the public, and emphasizing the development and implementation of policies based on them.
Despite these implications, this study has several limitations. Firstly, it excludes infants, early childhood, and out-of-school adolescents, and does not analyze school levels or differentiate between childhood and adolescence. Secondly, being a secondary cross-sectional analysis, the study has limitations in terms of available variables and analytical constraints. Thirdly, it does not consider the internal mechanisms that may occur between individual internal and external protective factors. Recognizing these limitations, future studies are encouraged to contribute to the healthy growth of children and adolescents by expanding the target groups and exploring the relationship between a broader range of developmental outcomes and protective factors through longitudinal analyses.