Windows of vulnerability: Sensitive periods for social adversity in adolescence

大量研究表明，幼儿期的不良经历会影响儿童的发展，并对其心理和认知健康产生持久影响。这一证据表明，生命的最初几年形成了一个脆弱的窗口，或者说是逆境的敏感期。这项研究有助于有效的政策干预，旨在保护幼儿免受逆境，改善他们的福祉。不经意间，对幼儿期的关注也导致了对我们生命中另一个形成时期-青春期-的忽视。青春期的特点是大脑结构和认知的长期变化。与此同时，青年人的社会角色发生了深刻变化。他们变得越来越独立于父母，更加关注同龄人。关于青少年发展的新兴理论表明，青少年时期的这些社会、认知和神经变化可能会在幼儿期之后引起第二个敏感期-特别是对于受到欺凌或排斥等不良社会经历。我们现在正处于一个独特的时间点，统计方法的最新进展，加上随着时间的推移跟踪大量年轻人的新数据，使我们能够系统地检验这些理论。这为青少年提供了前所未有的机会，通过为逆境预防、发现和干预工作提供信息，促进他们的福祉。我们的研究有三个主要目标：1.识别不同类型的社会逆境为了捕捉社会逆境的多面性，我们与儿童慈善机构Barnardo's建立了合作伙伴关系。我们将能够利用他们的数据，了解社会、教育和心理健康从业人员对什么类型的社会逆境对年轻人最重要的看法。在这些见解的指导下，我们将分析来自英国大型队列的数据，以了解不同类型的社会逆境如何影响年轻人的心理健康和认知。我们将把我们的见解反馈给从业者，以帮助指导他们的实践，并支持经历社会逆境的年轻人。2.利用英国大型队列的数据，我们将分析社会逆境如何影响儿童，年轻人和成年人。这将帮助我们了解在生活中的什么时候，什么类型的逆境对我们影响最大。它还将告诉我们青春期是否有敏感或脆弱的时期。这项工作将有助于为政策、慈善和政府工作提供信息，强调在生命预防和干预工作中什么时候可能是最重要的。为此，我们将分析青少年在逆境中的经历，以及他们的认知和大脑发育的信息。这将使我们能够理解从逆境到认知变化的发展事件的顺序。这将产生关于青春期敏感期的新理论，并激发未来对逆境的研究。我们的工作将导致对年轻人脆弱性的新理解。它将明确指出需要针对哪些类型的社会逆境，以及在生活中的哪个阶段，以改善以后的认知和心理健康问题。为了确保我们的研究结果能够到达年轻人和那些照顾他们的人，我们将与Barnardo's合作编写一份无障碍的政策简报，并为从业者，政策制定者和慈善机构举办合作研讨会。在这次研讨会上，我们将讨论我们的研究结果，并寻求利益相关者对我们的研究结果如何与政策和实践协同作用的投入。然后，我们将通过在线，印刷和社交媒体向公众展示我们的发现，并在学校展示我们的工作。所有这些都确保我们的工作对青年的福祉产生持久和积极的影响。

A large body of research has shown that adverse experiences during early childhood can affect children's development and have a lasting impact on their mental and cognitive health. This evidence suggests that the first few years of life form a window of vulnerability, or sensitive period, for adversity. This research has contributed to effective policy interventions designed to protect young children from adversity and improve their well-being. Inadvertently, the focus on early childhood has also led to a neglect of another formative period of our lives - adolescence.Adolescence is characterized by protracted changes in brain structure and cognition. At the same time, young people experience profound changes in social roles. They become increasingly independent from their parents, and more focussed on peers. Emerging theories of adolescent development suggest that these social, cognitive and neural changes in adolescence may give rise to a second sensitive period after early childhood - particularly for adverse social experiences such as being bullied or excluded. We are now at a unique point in time where recent advances in statistical methodology, combined with emerging data following large cohorts of young people over time, allow us to test these theories systematically. This provides unprecedented opportunities to foster well-being in young people by informing adversity prevention, detection and intervention efforts.The three main objectives of our research are:1. Identifying different types of social adversityTo capture the multifaceted nature of social adversity, we have established a partnership with the Children's Charity Barnardo's. We will be able to use their data on social, educational and mental health practitioners' views of what types of social adversity matter most to young people. Guided by these insights, we will analyse data from large UK cohorts to understand how different types of social adversity affect mental health and cognition in young people. We will feed our insights back to practitioners to help guide their practice and support young people who experience social adversity. 2. Characterizing windows of vulnerability in adolescenceLeveraging data from large UK cohorts, we will analyse how social adversity affects children, young people and adults. This will help us understand at what point in life what type of adversity affects us most. It will also tell us whether there are sensitive or vulnerable periods in adolescence. This work will help inform policy, charity and government work, by highlighting at what point in life prevention and intervention efforts may be most important.3. Investigating developmental sequences For this objective we will analyse data on young people's experience of adversity, as well as information on their cognitive and brain development. This will allow us to understand the sequence of developmental events leading from adversity to cognitive changes. This will generate new theories about sensitive periods in adolescence and inspire future research into adversity.Our work will lead to a new understanding of vulnerabilities in young people. It will pinpoint what types of social adversity need to be targeted, and at which point in life, in order to ameliorate cognitive and mental health problems later on. To ensure that our findings reach young people and those caring for them, we will write an accessible policy brief in partnership with Barnardo's, and host a collaborative workshop for practitioners, policy makers and charities. In this workshop, we will discuss our findings and seek input from stakeholders on how our findings synergize with policy and practice. We will then take our findings to the public through online, print and social media, as well as presenting our work in schools. All of this ensures that our work has a lasting and positive impact on young people's well-being.