Abuse Interacting with the Brain

        Abuse is a serious topic that can greatly affect brain development. There is more than one kind of abuse and it can happen to anyone.  There’s different approaches to teach a child who’s a victim of abuse. Abuse causes the child’s brain to develop differently, which causes us to have to find different teaching methods to accommodate the child.

        There are multiple different forms of abuse. Some types include, physical, emotional, neglect and sexual abuse. Physical abuse is the non-accidental injury to a child. Examples include slapping, shaking, hitting, kicking, burning, pushing, smothering, restraining, and torture. Emotional abuse is constant belittling and rejecting of a child, or the absence of a positive emotional atmosphere. Examples are verbal abuse, inappropriate parenting, and neglect. Sexual abuse can be sexual touching, molestation, or prostitution of a child.

        Children with histories of child abuse usually respond differently to things. Traumatized children can be responsive to minor things because of decreased frontal lobe functioning which controls learning and problem solving. It also affects the limbic system sensitivity which controls impulsiveness. The cortex controls our thinking capacity. The cortex is in constant communication with the amygdala and the hippocampus which are all a part of the limbic system. The frontal lobes are responsible for learning and problem solving. When children are under threat, the limbic systems more likely be to activated before the slower prefrontal cortex has a chance to. Only calm arousal lets the activation of the prefrontal cortex work which is needed for learning and problem solving.

        The most important part of a safe classroom is the teacher's attitude toward students. There is nothing that a child can do to prevent or stop the abuse. It’s important to remember that the children have developed coping mechanisms that have helped them to survive traumatic experiences. A caring and positive attitude from the teacher will let the child trust them enough to help them and teach them. Teachers have the opportunity to give an abused child the sense of being cared for and fun childhood experiences to remember.