Skip To Main Content

Landing Nav

Breadcrumb

Adverse Childhood Experiences

social-worker-talking-to-family

An adverse childhood experience (ACE) describes a traumatic experience in a person’s life occurring before the age of 18 that the person remembers as an adult.

The nine ACEs are:

  • physical abuse
  • sexual abuse
  • emotional abuse
  • mental illness of a household member
  • problematic drinking or alcoholism of a household member
  • illegal street or prescription drug use by a household member
  • divorce or separation of a parent
  • domestic violence towards a parent
  • incarceration of a household member

The ACE score is a measure of cumulative exposure to adverse childhood conditions. Exposure to any single ACE condition is counted as one point. If a person experienced none of the conditions in childhood, the ACE score is zero. Points are then totaled for a final ACE score. It is important to note that the ACE score does not capture the frequency or severity of any given ACE in a person’s life, focusing instead on the number of ACE conditions experienced. In addition, the ACE conditions used in the ACE survey reflect only a select list of experiences.