Keywords
Adverse Childhood Experiences; ACEs; Working Memory; ACEs; Ospan; Span
Abstract
Extensive research has shown that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as sexual abuse, poverty, physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, can negatively impact an individual’s development. The presence of ACEs has also been linked to an increase in one’s engagement in risky behavior, dropping out of school, unemployment before the age of 21, and a variety of health issues. Currently, there is a gap in literature regarding the performance of different working memory (WM) tasks and the presence of ACEs. This study focuses on filling this gap in literature by measuring participants’ Philadelphia ACE score, which is a 16-item questionnaire, where each question details one possible adverse childhood experience, for each affirmative response the participant receives 1 point. Additionally, their performance is tested on two WM tasks, the Operational Digit Span task and Weschler’s Digit Span task. This study is interested in finding a negative difference in performance between the ACE group and the non-ACE group when taking the two aforementioned memory tasks. This study found that there is a non-significant relationship between ACE group and performance on both the Ospan and Dspan. There is not a significant relationship between ACE group and Ospan sequence sub-task performance. Unexpectedly, there was a significant positive relationship between ACE group and Dspan task accuracy. The result of this study is likely attributed to the small and disproportional sample size, alongside the demographics of the sample. Future studies should use different sampling methods and more intensive tasks that measure WM performance.
Thesis Completion Year
2025
Thesis Completion Semester
Spring
Thesis Chair
Chin, Matthew
College
College of Sciences
Department
Psychology
Thesis Discipline
Psychology
Language
English
Access Status
Open Access
Length of Campus Access
None
Campus Location
Orlando (Main) Campus
STARS Citation
Miller, Lake, "Adverse Childhood Experiences and Working Memory" (2025). Honors Undergraduate Theses. 356.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/hut2024/356
Rights Statement
