PSYC 210: Developmental Psychology (HC) Fall 2024

• I brainstormed issues related to child development that I'm curious about.
   
• One thing I came up with is the effect of childhood trauma on development. That got me thinking about the trauma experienced by children separated from their parents at the U.S./Mexico border.
   
• I did some googling and found this story from May 7, 2024: 
  Children are still being separated from parents while in border custody, independent monitor finds.
   
• The story was published by National Center for Youth Law. 
  • I learned there is a branch in D.C. and decided this would be a good "community partner" to get in touch with.
  • How does this organization, or others like it, benefit children in this situation or who have suffered similar childhood traumas?
     
• I did a little more googling and a little more reading, and I decided to research this specific issue related to child development: 
  Are developmental delays common among children who were separated from their parents at the U.S./Mexico border?
   
• See how I set out to find evidence below.

My research question:

Are developmental delays common among children who were separated from their parents at the U.S./Mexico border?

(OR more broadly, Is there a relationship between early childhood trauma and developmental delays?; then draw conclusions about the more specific question above using the evidence you find.)

Step 1: Break up this research question into two or three main concepts. Ignore extraneous words.

• Concept #1: early childhood trauma
• Concept #2: developmental delay

Step 2: Conduct an initial search with these words, and quickly scan the results. 

Step 3: Using information from your initial search, add synonyms, acronyms, and variant spellings.

• Concept #1: "early childhood trauma" OR "adverse childhood experiences" OR ace
• Concept #2: "developmental delay" OR "developmental skills"

• Even if the search engine you are using doesn't require you to enter boolean operators, it is still using them behind the scenes. It will help you to know the logic behind your search
  .
• AND gives you results that include ALL of your concepts.
   
• OR gives you results that include ANY of your concepts.
  ​
• Essentially, you are searching:​

("early childhood trauma" OR "adverse childhood experiences" OR ace) AND ("developmental delays" OR "developmental skills")

How do I find an empirical article?

• There's no perfect way to find empirical articles. Most empirical articles will describe a study that has been done, so you're best bet is to use the word "study" as one of your search words.
   
• Also look at the bibliographies of review articles; the authors likely used one or more primary research articles to write the review.
   

• Some databases (e.g. PsycInfo, PubMed) have a special limit for different types of articles.​