If your setting chooses to record ACEs for Participants you'll find some guidance and the list of questions here.

"As the number of ACEs increases so does the risk of physical illness in adulthood: heart attacks, strokes, cancer, diabetes, chronic lung disease, autoimmune disease, sleep disturbances, eating disorders, headaches, obesity, asthma, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, early death.
So ACEs are implicated in the 10 leading causes of death in the western world."
(Brown, DW, Anda, RF, Tiemeier, H, Felitti, VJ, Edwards, VJ, Croft, JB, and Giles, WH. (2009) ‘Adverse childhood experiences and the risk of premature mortality’. Am J Prev Med 37, 389-396).


Notes on reading the questions

  • These ACE questions should never be presented to a child or young person themselves - they are only to be used with an adult who knows the child well.
  • Words in italics represent a frequency that is significant, so for example in Q1 a parent or other adult in the child's household who "often or very often swear" would mean one ACE point. If the swearing was occasional it wouldn't get a point. Some things are so serious they earn a point if they ever happened.
  • The questions here refer to the child or young person as "they", "their" and "them", whereas the original ACE Questionnaire was designed to be answered for oneself and therefore used "you" and "your".
  • A point is earned for each of the 20 things that happened before the child's 18th birthday. The maximum score is 20, where the original ACE study had 10 questions and therefore a max score of 10.
  • You can enter the final ACE score in the Participant Profile by going to the Participants page, and clicking the edit icon on the relevant row.


The ACE Questions

  1. Did a parent or other adult in the household:
    often or very often swear at them, insult them, put them down, humiliate them or
    threaten to abandon them or throw them out of the house?
  2. Did a parent or other adult in the household:
    often or very often push, grab, slap, or throw something at them, or
    ever hit them so hard that they had marks or were injured?
  3. Did an adult or person at least 5 years older than them:
    ever touch or fondle them or have them touch the adult's body in a sexual way, or
    attempt to or actually have oral, anal, or vaginal intercourse with them?
  4. Did they:
    often or very often feel that no one in their family loved them or thought they were important or special, or
    feel their family didn’t look out for each other, feel close to each other, or support each other?
  5. Did they often or very often feel that their parents did not understand or help them with their problems or worries?
  6. Did they:
    often or very often feel that they didn’t have enough to eat, had to wear dirty clothes, and had no one to protect them, or
    their parents were too drunk or high to take care of them or take them to the doctor if they needed it?
  7. Were their parents ever separated or divorced?
  8. Did they ever suffer a painful loss of a loved one? (e.g. friend/family)
  9. Was their mother or carer:
    often or very often pushed, grabbed, slapped, had something thrown at her, or
    sometimes, often, or very often kicked, bitten, hit with a fist, hit with something hard, or
    ever repeatedly hit over at least a few minutes or threatened with a gun or knife?
  10. Did they live with anyone who was a problem drinker or alcoholic, or who used street drugs?
  11. Was someone in their family depressed or mentally ill, or did a family member attempt suicide?
  12. Did a family member go to prison?
  13. Did they experience multiple school and or home moves or were homeless?
  14. Were they ever bullied, physically attacked or experienced discrimination? (e.g race, religion, ethnicity)
  15. Did they ever witness a sibling being abused, bullied?
  16. Did they ever witness anyone being threatened with a gun or knife or actually attacked with gun or knife?
  17. Did they ever have to leave their home or country because it was not safe to stay there?
  18. Did they ever live in an unsafe neighbourhood?
  19. Have they ever been extremely ill or injured or experienced a family member who was extremely ill or injured?
  20. Have they ever been taken into foster care?