The 6 Essentials to Treating Developmental Disorders and Trauma


Course Description

Continuing Education Hours: 5

This training will focus on working with adults who serve children with developmental disabilities. We will focus on how to approach work and healing with families where the child has a developmental disability with a trauma informed approach. We will fully explain how trauma impacts development from a neuroscientific perspective. Participants will discover how the interaction between the internal wiring in the brain, the first relationship, and the environment can be impacted by developmental disabilities and how this can be further impacted by trauma in the early years. The training will explore the ACES, attachment, and sensory/body based self-regulation-based work that supports clients in healing trauma in this specific group that is not best served by traditional talk therapy and cognitive interventions.

Learning Objectives


  • Participants will understand how to work with clients with developmental disorders from a trauma-informed lens.
  • Participants will understand ways that developmental disorders impact learning and relationships.
  • Participants will understand how the brain is neurobiologically wired for attachment but development disorders may make forming relationships and parenting more challenging.
  • Participants will learn how to work with neurodevelopmental delay caused by trauma and evaluation using the ACE’s and other tools.
  • Participants will learn what self-regulation and attachment-based activities can be used with this client group.
  • Participants will understand the importance of psycho-education around trauma and learn practical, non-cognitive approaches to help clients understand how their brains and bodies may have been impacted by this trauma.

Camea Peca, Ph.D., MSc, CFTP, CCTS-I

Camea has spent over 15 years working with Children and Families in a vast range of settings both locally and abroad. After completing a Bachelor of Science at ASU, Camea spent 10 years abroad studying and working. During this time, she completed a MSc in Psychoanalytic Development Psychology at the Anna Freud Center/University College London including a dissertation in Sensory Integration Therapy and Tactile and Vestibular Processing Disorder. During this training Camea was trained by leaders in attachment and infant development including Dr. Peter Fonagy and Mary Target. As a part of this training Camea had the chance to work with the Child Center for Mental Health and participating in specialty training with leaders in the expressive arts as well as Sir Richard Bowlby, Dr. Dan Hughes, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, Dr. Bruce Perry, and many others. She completed clinical training and supervision in the Expressive Arts with Dr. Margot Sunderland and the Helping Where It Hurts program which puts expressive arts therapists in inner city London schools. Professionally Camea has worked in a variety of settings including adolescent shelters, inpatient psychiatric units, schools and specialty projects targeting physical and sexualized trauma. For over two years Camea has worked as a Trauma Therapist in a local specialty service targeting children and families that have experienced sexual abuse. Camea specializes in work with very young children and their families and has extensive experience with early developmental trauma and attachment based therapy using the expressive arts and sensory based modalities. Camea uses her eclectic and wide range of international training and clinical experience to deliver dynamic and experiential training.

Enrollment Pricing

CCPA and GDPR Disclaimer: all personal information is considered private and confidential and Arizona Trauma Institute never provides the information to a third party or uses the information for anything other than its intended purposes for training registration.