Generative AI in Higher Education: A Systematic Review, Gap Analysis, and Future Research Directions

The evidence assembled in this paper points in a consistent direction, though it is not a simple or entirely bleak one. Children raised in environments characterized by parental conflict, emotional neglect, domestic violence, and authoritarian control face substantial, measurable, and well-documented risks to their psychological development. These risks operate through multiple channels — neurobiological, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral — and their effects often persist well into adulthood. They are not, however, inevitable outcomes. The literature consistently identifies protective factors — particularly the presence of at least one stable, responsive, and genuinely caring adult relationship — that can meaningfully buffer even severe developmental adversity. That qualification does not diminish the urgency of the problem, but it points unmistakably toward the possibility of change. The case of Subject A illustrates what cumulative adversity looks like in practice: not as a series of dramatic, legally actionable events, but as the slow accumulation of unmet needs, unacknowledged distress, suppressed expression, and enforced conformity — a childhood defined less by what happened than by what was consistently absent. Understanding this requires a shift in analytical frame, from a focus on acute traumatic events toward a recognition of chronic environmental conditions as sources of developmental harm. What Subject A's experience demonstrates is that the damage done by years of emotional unavailability, authoritarian control, and conflict exposure is real — even when it is invisible from the outside. Several implications follow from this analysis. At the clinical level, trauma-informed therapeutic approaches — including trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy and attachment-based intervention — have demonstrated efficacy in supporting children's recovery from adverse early experiences, particularly when initiated before patterns of emotional suppression and behavioral dysregulation become fully entrenched (Cohen et al., 2006). At the school level, educators trained in trauma-informed practices are positioned to serve as the kind of protective adult relationship that many children in adverse home environments desperately lack — a role that is modest in its demands but potentially transformative in its developmental effect. At the policy level, the findings support expanded investment in early identification of at-risk family environments, community-based support programs for parents experiencing domestic violence or substance use difficulties, and educational curricula that build emotional literacy from early childhood. The persistent tendency — documented in this study and confirmed in the broader literature — to prioritize family privacy and social reputation over child psychological welfare must be actively countered by institutional norms and practices that place child safety at the center. These invisible wounds rarely announce themselves — they surface quietly, years later, in the teenager who cannot trust, the young adult who fears their own decisions, the adult who finds intimacy unbearable. By the time these consequences are visible, the window of earliest intervention has long since closed. Recognizing the developmental significance of what children silently endure within troubled households — and committing, institutionally and socially, to take that recognition seriously — is not merely a clinical imperative. It is, at its core, a question of what kind of society we are willing to build for our children.

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