Young Children in the Aftermath of the World Trade Center Attacks

The attacks of September 11, 2001, on the World Trade Center were unprecedented acts of terrorism on U.S. soil. The disaster provides an opportunity to understand the responses of young children to a traumatic event of this proportion. This retrospective study took place within a year of the attacks...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological trauma 2011-03, Vol.3 (1), p.1-7
Main Authors: DeVoe, Ellen R., Klein, Tovah P., Bannon, William, Miranda-Julian, Claudia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Childhood Development
Emotional Trauma
Female
Human
Male
Mental Health
Parenting
Parents
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Survivors
Terrorism
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The attacks of September 11, 2001, on the World Trade Center were unprecedented acts of terrorism on U.S. soil. The disaster provides an opportunity to understand the responses of young children to a traumatic event of this proportion. This retrospective study took place within a year of the attacks and examined the relationship of levels of exposure to the World Trade Center disaster and family level predictors to trauma symptoms in a highly exposed sample of 180 young children in New York City. Data were collected through interviews with parents of children five years or younger at the time of the attacks. Primary variables included direct exposure and post9/11 child and parent functioning, including trauma symptoms. Child trauma symptoms were related to direct exposure to the disaster, previous trauma, negative changes in parenting, and increased couple tension. Findings support the conceptualization that children's responses to traumatic events must be addressed within the caregiving context of family relationships. Clinical and preventive intervention for young children should be aimed at multiple levels of the social ecology.
ISSN:1942-9681
1942-969X
DOI:10.1037/a0020567