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Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Positive Childhood Experiences...
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Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) on Children’s Development

A special issue of Children (ISSN 2227-9067). This special issue belongs to the section "Pediatric Mental Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 December 2025 | Viewed by 597

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Nicole L. Letourneau

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Nursing and Cumming School of Medicine (Pediatrics, Psychiatry & Community Health Sciences), University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
Interests: parent–infant/child relationships; perinatal mental health; infant mental health; vulnerable children; parent–child interventions; social support; domestic abuse; toxic stress; adverse childhood experiences; child development and health; biological sensitivity; genetics; epigenetics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This issue, titled “Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) on Children's Development”, invites novel research focused on examining the association between ACEs and various domains related to children’s development, including behavioral, social–emotional, physical, genetic, neurological, and psychosocial, whether experienced directly or indirectly (e.g., intergenerationally). Studies focused on positive childhood experiences will also be accepted, helping to pinpoint protective factors linked to children’s development. Inviting research using diverse methodologies and study design approaches, this issue will help to explain the negative and positive effects of ACEs and PCEs, respectively, on children’s neurodevelopment, helping to promote global child health. Dr. Nicole Letourneau and Mr. Stefan Kurbatfinski encourage the application of equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility to further identify population health factors associated with children’s neurodevelopment in the context of ACEs. 

Prof. Dr. Nicole L. Letourneau
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Children is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • adverse childhood experiences
  • positive childhood experiences
  • child development
  • equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility
  • child health
  • global health

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

32 pages, 710 KB  
Review
A Comparison of Methods for Testing and Implementing Community Health Interventions in Childhood: A Realist Review
by Lubna Anis, Karen M. Benzies, Carol Ewashen, Martha Hart and Nicole Letourneau
Children 2025, 12(12), 1605; https://doi.org/10.3390/children12121605 - 25 Nov 2025
Viewed by 388
Abstract
Background: Innovative methods to test healthcare interventions have recently emerged to help provide more targeted, effective, and scalable interventions. Given the importance of the early years for children’s development, improved interventions for vulnerable children and families have become public health imperatives. Traditional randomized [...] Read more.
Background: Innovative methods to test healthcare interventions have recently emerged to help provide more targeted, effective, and scalable interventions. Given the importance of the early years for children’s development, improved interventions for vulnerable children and families have become public health imperatives. Traditional randomized control trials (RCTs), considered the gold standards, have serious limitations due to high costs, time demands, and issues with the generalizability of the results. Indeed, new accelerated methods are being considered to improve the efficiency of RCTs. Thus, we compared innovative methods with RCTs in their ability to test and implement interventions. We also provided recommendations for best practices in the child-health research. Methods: A realist review was undertaken to identify and make recommendations on what works for whom and under what circumstances. This realist meta-review was conducted as an umbrella review of reviews, supplemented by a synthesis of the targeted grey-literature, to report both peer-reviewed and practice-based evidence on evaluation methods for community child-health interventions. We searched electronic databases, including MEDLINE, PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and the grey literature, and provided references. We identified, selected, and appraised sources if they were (1) written in English, (2) answered our research question, (3) described/criticized a method for intervention evaluation, and (4) focused on community-based health interventions. Results: For our final analysis, out of 5167 identified documents, we selected those that criticized or reviewed RCTs (n = 13) and innovative methods (n = 31). Following Pawson’s recommendations, we developed an extraction tool to promote a consistent approach and assessed to what degree each method enabled evaluation, was theory driven, offered clear guidelines, provided clear methods or tools, fostered innovation, was fast and generalizable, worked for who and under what circumstances, and focused on children and child-related research. Conclusions: Innovative and accelerated methods offer promising alternatives to the traditional RCTs for evaluating community-based child health interventions. Among these, the Innovate, Develop, Evaluate, Adapt, and Scale (IDEAS) method emerged as the most integrative and context-sensitive approach to evaluate early interventions in a variety of settings. Other innovative methods were not well-developed, compromising the internal validity of studies focused on promoting children’s health in community settings. Graphical abstract synthesizes the phases of RCTs and contrasts them with IDEAS. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) on Children’s Development)
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