Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Assessment

---

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are traumatic events that occur during childhood (0-17 years). These experiences can have a significant impact on a person's physical, mental, and social health throughout their life.
​
This comprehensive Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Assessment is designed to help identify childhood adversity and explore how those experiences may be affecting emotional health, relationships, stress responses, self-esteem, and daily functioning today. The assessment includes the 10 core ACE questions, automatic scoring, current trauma and stress symptoms, functional impact, resilience and protective factors, safety considerations, and treatment-planning questions. Results are intended to support psychoeducation and clinical discussion and should not be interpreted as a diagnosis, a measure of how “damaged” someone is, or a prediction of future outcomes.​

Trauma Assessment • Childhood Adversity • Resilience

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Assessment

Adverse Childhood Experiences are potentially traumatic or destabilizing experiences that occur during childhood and adolescence. This expanded assessment preserves the 10 questions from the existing page while adding trauma-informed interpretation, current symptom impact, protective factors, resilience, functional reflection, and recovery planning.

Mark Zauss, BC-TMC, LMHC, LPC, CCMHC, NCC, ASDCS, CCTP, CCTP II, NATC, ADHD-CCSP, C-DBT, C-PD
Double Board Certified Counseling Services, Inc.

Score + AI-Style Summary Save Progress Restore Print / Save PDF Download Summary Reset

Understanding ACEs

What Are Adverse Childhood Experiences?

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic or destabilizing experiences that occur before age 18. They can include abuse, neglect, exposure to violence, caregiver mental-health or substance-use problems, parental separation, incarceration of a household member, and other experiences that undermine a child's sense of safety, stability, attachment, or belonging.

Research has found a graded relationship between greater exposure to childhood adversity and increased population-level risk for a range of later health, behavioral-health, and social difficulties. However, an ACE score is not destiny. It does not predict what will happen to a particular person, does not diagnose PTSD or another disorder, and does not capture all childhood adversity, resilience, protective relationships, genetics, community support, or later healing.

Important: The score on this page is simply the number of “Yes” responses to the 10 childhood-adversity categories used on the existing Mark Zauss Therapy page. It should be interpreted as a descriptive exposure count—not as a diagnostic severity score.

Results

Scoring & Interpretation

ACE exposure count0 / 10Number of “Yes” responses

Unanswered / unsure0Not included in total

Current symptom burden0 / 40Original descriptive section

Protective factors0 / 10Strengths/supports endorsed

Do not interpret ACE scores as diagnostic cutoffs. Research shows a population-level dose-response relationship between cumulative adversity and later health risks, but a score cannot predict an individual's future, determine whether someone has PTSD, or capture all trauma and resilience. Clinical interpretation should focus on the person's actual symptoms, functioning, context, strengths, and treatment needs.

AI-Style Summary

Automated Clinical Summary

This narrative is generated locally using rule-based logic. No information is transmitted to an external AI service. Review and edit the summary before using it in a clinical record.

Complete the assessment and select “Score + AI-Style Summary.”

Clinical Interpretation

How to Think About an ACE Score

ACE score	Useful interpretation	Avoid concluding
0	No “Yes” responses on these 10 categories. Other adversity may still have occurred because no ACE checklist captures every form of childhood trauma.	That childhood was necessarily safe or trauma-free.
1–3	One or more forms of childhood adversity were endorsed. Consider present symptoms, context, duration, and protective factors.	That a disorder is present or absent based on score alone.
4+	Higher cumulative exposure. Population research has found stronger associations between cumulative ACE exposure and a variety of later health and behavioral-health risks.	That poor outcomes are inevitable or that the score predicts an individual's future.

Clinical Resources & References

Selected Sources

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2026). About Adverse Childhood Experiences.
https://www.cdc.gov/aces/about/

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024). Risk and Protective Factors for Adverse Childhood Experiences.
https://www.cdc.gov/aces/risk-factors/index.html

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024). Preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences.
https://www.cdc.gov/aces/prevention/index.html

Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., Koss, M. P., & Marks, J. S. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245–258. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0749-3797(98)00017-8

This webpage is intended for psychoeducation, screening, and clinical discussion. The additional symptom, functional-impact, resilience, and treatment-planning sections are clinician-created and are not validated psychometric scales.