About the project

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic events that occur in an individual's life before age eighteen. Research shows that a higher ACEs score is associated with an increased risk of academic failure.  

There is a paucity of research on childhood adversity's associations with children's academic achievement in New Zealand context. Also, little research has addressed the protective factors to counteract detrimental effects of early adversity on children’s educational outcomes in New Zealand. Identifying mitigating factors and clarifying mechanisms explaining the relationship between ACEs and children’s educational outcomes could be helpful in understanding the protective factors and enabling the development of effective interventions to elevate the educational outcomes in children who have been exposed to ACEs.

In the present research, three studies are proposed. In Study One, the association between ACEs and children’s educational outcomes in New Zealand will be explored. In Study Two, cognitive development as a previously untested potential mechanism through which ACEs affect children’s educational outcomes will be investigated. Finally, the mitigating effect of school engagement in the relationship between ACEs and children's educational outcomes will be explored in Study Three. We anticipate that a higher ACEs score is associated with an increased risk of academic failure in children and that cognitive development help to explain the relationship between ACEs and children’s educational outcomes. We also expect that emotional school engagement will mitigate the effect of ACEs on educational outcomes in children.

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Start date: 1/02/2023

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