This lecture series, inaugurated in 1987, honors the memory of Cynthia Longfellow, SLC '72, Harvard Ed.D. '79, who devoted her professional life to bettering the lives of young children. The lecture is funded by an endowment established by family and friends.

2008 Longfellow Lecture

The Impact of Abuse and Neglect on the Developing Child:
Relationships, Resilience, and Vulnerability

Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D.

Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D. is the Senior Fellow at The ChildTrauma Academy, a not-forprofit organization that promotes innovations in service, research, and education in child maltreatment and childhood trauma. Dr. Perry’s clinical research and practice have focused on high-risk children — examining long-term cognitive, behavioral, emotional, social, and physiological effects of neglect and trauma in children, adolescents, and adults, with the goal of promoting positive change within institutions such as child protective services, mental health, public education, and juvenile justice. This work has been instrumental in describing how childhood experiences change the biology of the brain — and, thereby, the health of the child.

Dr. Perry is the author of more than 300 journal articles, book chapters, and scientific proceedings and is the recipient of numerous professional awards and honors, including the T. Berry Brazelton Infant Mental Health Advocacy Award, the Award for Leadership in Public Child Welfare, and the Alberta Centennial Medal. His most recent book, authored with Maia Szalavitz, is titled: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us about Loss, Love, and Healing.

For additional information and select publications, please visit the ChildTrauma Academy site.

Previous Longfellow Lectures

• 2007: Cultural Aspects of Learning: Observation, Collaboration, and Multimodal Conversation
  Barbara Rogoff, Ph.D.
• 2006: Teaching as Political Work: Courageous and Caring Teachers
  Sonia Nieto, Ph.D.
• 2005: America's Move to Universal Preschool Education
  Edward Zigler, Ph.D.
• 2004: Violence and Education: The Twin Crises Facing America’s Children
  Geoffrey Canada, M.Ed.
• 2002: In Schools We Trust: What Kind of Schooling Nourishes Democracy?
  Deborah W. Meier, M.A.
• 2001: Children on the Cultural Front Line
  Roger A. Hart, Ph.D.
• 2001: Eager To Learn: Educating our Youngest Children
  Barbara T. Bowman, M.A., D.H.L.
• 1999: Standards and Assessment vs. The Magic of Childhood
  Herbert Kohl, M.A.
• 1998: World View and Education Change in School
  Asa G. Hilliard, III, Ed.D.
• 1997: Leveling with Children in a Complex World: A View from a Feminist Scholar
  Peggy McIntosh, Ph.D.
• 1996: The Science and Politics of Child Poverty
  J. Lawrence Aber, Ph.D.
• 1995: Community and Kinship in the Classroom
  Vivian Paley, M.A.
• 1994: The Strains on American Families
  Benjamin Spock, M.D.
• 1992: The Unschooled Mind
  Howard Gardner, Ph.D.
• 1991: Educating for Humanity
  Kenneth B. Clark, Ph.D.
• 1990: Child Abuse and Truth Telling
  Albert J. Solnit, M.D.
• 1989: The Changing Faces of Fatherhood
  Ross Parke, Ph.D.
• 1988: "Food & Vitamins": Providing Language Environments for Children
  Courtney Cazden, Ph.D.
• 1987: Fifty Years of Seeing Children Around the World
   Lois B. Murphy, Ph.D.