Modifying the Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire: Does a Continuous Approach Better Predict Life Course Outcomes?

In the past 20 years, childhood trauma has often been measured by the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) scale. This cumulative risk scale asks whether 10 specific adverse experiences occurred before the age of 18, with higher scores indicating higher risk of negative biopsychosocial outcomes in adulthood. Although valuable, this binary approach may not provide rich enough information to identify those at risk for negative health and psychological outcomes. In this study, we developed a scale measuring the magnitude of adverse childhood experiences as well as a scale measuring the perceived impact of adverse childhood experiences. We compared these scales with the traditional ACEs scale to determine which of the three was most closely correlated with general health, self-esteem, aggressive behavior, social pain, social support, post-traumatic stress disorder, and loneliness. The first study population was drawn from a snowball community sample of 208 participants with an average ACE score of 3.83 (SD = 2.79). The second study population was a US nationally representative online sample of 318 participants from Prolific Academic with an average ACE score of 3.13 (SD = 2.36). In both studies, we found the three scales to be equally predictive of all seven outcome variables. Results suggest the traditional ACEs scale may be sufficient for identifying people experiencing higher levels of trauma. However, both of our participant samples had higher levels of ACEs than the US national average, indicating that more research would be needed to determine if this finding generalizes to populations with lower levels of adverse childhood experiences.