METHODS


Article selection was conducted  through using the key words— Human ecology AND childhood trauma OR maltreatment AND resilience* AND developmental effects AND bio social ecological model AND Bronfenbrenner in the following databases: Academic Search Complete, ERIC, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, SocINDEX with Full Text, Google Scholar and E-Journals. The early resilience research began after WWII, and so was connected to attachment and effects of war on children, but several articles connected to prison inmate populations and returning veterans, those suffering from PTSD as a result of deployment or prison violence, so I narrowed search criteria to exclude these populations.  As a result, I added limiters---NOT military, NOT prison, NOT terrorism, using the dates---2013-2014, peer reviewed journals only. My purpose was to define and explore resilience factors in adult survivors of child trauma, excluding children studied in connection with large-scale trauma, focusing on those who experienced childhood maltreatment or abuse yet who later in life exhibited resilience characteristics and relative life success, narrowing dates for the most up to date research for current populations.