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Children who experience sexual or physical abuse often delay their disclosure. This study aimed to clarify the barriers and facilitators to abuse disclosure in a sample of children and adolescents participating in a police interview regarding alleged abuse. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 children (nine girls) who participated in a police interview regarding alleged abuse. They were asked about their abuse disclosure, their own and others' reactions to it, and the help and support they received from health service providers and other adults. Thematic analysis was used to identify themes, categories, and subthemes in the data. The key theme that emerged was the domino effect of disclosures, which occurred in three ways: unintentionally, delayed, or to professionals. Delays in, and reluctance to, disclose is explained in various ways. Four sub-categories emerged: ambivalence in personal and others' reactions, missed opportunities, reflection depending on age, and varied psychosocial support needs. Notably, disclosure delays did occur because children identified abusive acts as transgressions or did not considered the abuse significant. The present study reveals the significance of others' reactions to children's disclosures. The pattern showed supportive responses when children reported transgressions committed by adults, whereas peer abuse was met with mixed responses. Importantly, health care providers such as doctors and psychologists were not preferred confidants. In line with previous research, disclosure to friends or non-abusive family members was more common. The present findings underscore the difficulty with which children disclose abusive experiences, even in instances where it led to a police investigation. Child care practitioners need to be better equipped to meet a basic standard facilitating children to confide in others about abusive experiences. To increase the likelihood of keeping children in therapy after abuse, more active involvement of the child during clinical intervention seems important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For some children, psychological reactions to a traumatic event develop into severe or persistent post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) or the clinical condition of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Cognitive problems in children with PTSS have been reported, but it is not clear which specific functions are affected. Executive functions is a domain of particular interest, given its importance for academic performance and social and emotional functioning. A systematic literature search was performed, and 12 studies with 55 comparisons of executive functions in children with PTSS and healthy controls were eligible for meta-analysis. A subset of the studies also included a comparison group of children with traumatic experienced but without PTSS. Overall, across all tasks and measures, children with PTSS showed lower executive functioning than healthy controls (SMD = −0.57). The effect sizes between the subdomains complex tasks, verbal fluency, inhibition, shifting and working memory were not significantly different from each other, but was largest for verbal fluency (SMD = −1.45). Analyses comparing children with traumatic experiences with and without PTSS similarly showed overall lower executive functioning in the PTSS group (SMD = −0.34) and no significant differences in effect sizes between subdomains. The results have implications for assessment and clinical work with youth exposed to traumatic events. We should be aware of the poor executive functioning that may be an issue for some children with a history of trauma and subsequent development of PTSS, and the impact this could have on everyday functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals with histories of childhood trauma may adopt a nonspecific memory retrieval strategy to avoid unpleasant and intrusive memories. In a sample of 93 adolescents and adults with or without histories of child sexual abuse (CSA), we tested the hypothesis that nonspecific memory retrieval is related to an individual's general tendency to use avoidant (i.e., distancing) coping as a personal problem-solving or coping strategy, especially in victims of CSA. We also examined age differences and other individual differences (e.g., trauma-related psychopathology) as predictors of nonspecific memories. Distancing coping was significantly associated with less specific autobiographical memory. Younger age, lower vocabulary scores, and non-CSA childhood maltreatment (i.e., physical and emotional abuse) also uniquely predicted less autobiographical memory specificity, whereas trauma-related psychopathology was associated with more specific memory. Implications for the development of autobiographical memory retrieval in the context of coping with childhood maltreatment are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on adults have revealed a disadvantageous effect of negative emotional stimuli on executive functions (EF), and it is suggested that this effect is amplified in children. The present study’s aim was to assess how emotional facial expressions affected working memory in 9- to 12-year-olds, using a working memory task with emotional facial expressions as stimuli. Additionally, we explored how degree of internalizing and externalizing symptoms in typically developing children was related to performance on the same task. Before employing the working memory task with emotional facial expressions as stimuli, an independent sample of 9- to 12-year-olds was asked to recognize the facial expressions intended to serve as stimuli for the working memory task and to rate the facial expressions on the degree to which the emotion was expressed and for arousal to obtain a baseline for how children during this age recognize and react to facial expressions. The first study revealed that children rated the facial expressions with similar intensity and arousal across age. When employing the working memory task with facial expressions, results revealed that negatively valenced expressions impaired working memory more than neutral and positively valenced expressions. The ability to successfully complete the working memory task increased between 9 to 12 years of age. Children’s total problems were associated with poorer performance on the working memory task with facial expressions. Results on the effect of emotion on working memory are discussed in light of recent models and empirical findings on how emotional information might interact and interfere with cognitive processes such as working memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intentional forgetting is an active process relying on cognitive mechanisms (e.g., rehearsal strategies and inhibition) developing during the elementary school years. Colour photographs might be rehearsed differently in memory than words, and therefore result in a different developmental pattern of intentional forgetting than previously acknowledged. Moreover, negative material is thought to be particularly reliant upon inhibitory mechanisms in order not to be encoded in memory. Thus, children's item-directed forgetting (DF) might develop differently both in relation to colour photographs in general and for negative pictorial stimuli in particular. The aim of the present study was to investigate item DF for colour photographs of neutral and negative valence in sixty-five school-aged children (8–12 years of age). In the present study, a DF effect was revealed irrespective of age for neutral images as well as negative images. Results are discussed in relation to potential mechanisms underlying item DF for colour photographs and how these affect development of intentional forgetting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]