Windows of vulnerability: Sensitive periods for social adversity in adolescence

大量研究表明，儿童早期的不良经历会影响儿童的发展，并对他们的心理和认知健康产生持久的影响。这一证据表明，生命的最初几年形成了一个脆弱的窗口，或者说是对逆境的敏感期。这项研究有助于有效的政策干预，旨在保护幼儿免受逆境和改善他们的福祉。不经意间，对儿童早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，年轻人的社会角色也发生了深刻的变化。他们越来越独立于父母，更加关注同龄人。新兴的青少年发展理论表明，青春期的这些社会、认知和神经变化可能会导致童年早期之后的第二个敏感期——特别是对不良的社会经历，如被欺负或被排斥。我们现在正处于一个独特的时间点，统计方法的最新进展，加上长期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。这为促进年轻人的福祉提供了前所未有的机会，为逆境预防、发现和干预工作提供信息。我们研究的三个主要目标是：1。识别不同类型的社会逆境为了捕捉社会逆境的多面性，我们与巴纳多儿童慈善机构建立了合作关系。我们将能够利用他们的数据，从社会、教育和心理健康从业人员的角度，了解哪些类型的社会逆境对年轻人最重要。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. 利用来自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人生的哪个阶段，什么样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期或脆弱期。这项工作将有助于政策、慈善和政府工作，通过强调在生命的哪个阶段预防和干预工作可能是最重要的。为了实现这一目标，我们将分析年轻人逆境经历的数据，以及他们认知和大脑发育的信息。这将使我们了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，并启发未来对逆境的研究。我们的工作将使人们对年轻人的脆弱性有新的认识。它将明确指出需要针对哪些类型的社会逆境，以及在生命的哪个阶段，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传达给年轻人和那些关心他们的人，我们将与巴纳多合作撰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一次合作研讨会。在本次研讨会上，我们将讨论我们的发现，并就我们的发现如何与政策和实践协同作用征求利益攸关方的意见。然后，我们将通过在线、印刷和社交媒体向公众公布我们的发现，并在学校展示我们的工作。所有这些都确保我们的工作对年轻人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.