| Abstract [eng] |
Reflective Function of Adolescents with Adverse Childhood Experiences Reflective function, or RF, a core capacity of one’s successful social functioning, becomes of extreme importance in adolescent’s life. The goal of our research was to analyse what are the features of reflective function of adolescents that have experienced adverse life events, such as childhood abuse and neglect. Our sample consisted of 453 Lithuanian adolescents aged 10 to 18. To assess their reflective function, we used RFQ-Y and RMET – Child Version, whereas ACE was used to evaluate their adverse experiences. Firstly, we conducted between-group analyses between adolescents with and without adverse experiences. Secondly, we used cluster analysis to classify our target group to six sub-groups depending on their traumatic experiences and compared the results of these groups to the control group. Additionally, we looked at the results of correlational analyses and, finally, we compared the reflective function in each of the gender groups separately. The results showed that adolescents with adverse childhood experiences are worse at understanding positive emotional states and experience more uncertainty. Physical abuse and multiple abuse- physical neglect groups had deficiencies in overall and positive emotional state understanding, while emotional abuse group was better at understanding negative faces. Experience of emotional abuse and neglect and multiple-sexual abuse was also related to higher uncertainty. Statistically significant positive correlations between the separate RF elements were noticed in the adverse experience group, but not in the control group. Finally, it seems that girls with adverse experiences have a different pattern of RF difficulties than boys with adverse experiences. Our study showed that adolescents with adverse experiences have a spectrum of reflective function difficulties. |
