Links Between Traumatic Experiences and Expectations About the Future in High Risk Youth

The current analyses examined the role of past traumatic experiences in predicting expectations about social, academic, and occupational outcomes. These analyses were conducted in a sample of 843 youth, each 14 years old, who were participants in the Longitudinal Studies on Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN). The analyses took into account socioeconomic indicators. Three classes of expectations emerged from factor analyses: Academic/Employment Success, Employment Instability, and Social Instability. Predictors of future expectations included maltreatment, witnessed family and community violence, and caregiver and residential instability. Maltreatment predicted low expected Academic/ Employment Success and high expected Employment Instability. Caregiver instability predicted Employment instability and Social Instability. Witnessed community violence predicted Social Instability. Witnessed family violence and residential instability did not predict any dimension of future expectations in these analyses. There is a need to better understand links between types of trauma and expectations about the future in at-risk youth, and how these expectations may in turn influence their futures.