Adverse learning experiences in childhood may affect the adult’s capacity to learn throughout the lifespan. Suggestions for adult educators are provided. Fear and Learning: Trauma-Related Factors in the Adult Education Process Bruce D. Perry Simply stated, trauma changes the brain. Some of the most persistent changes in the brain involve the capacity to acquire new cognitive informa- tion and retrieve stored information—both essential for effective function- ing within our current educational system. The result is that, all too often, traumatized children experience the added insult of doing poorly in school, thereby failing within the one setting that might have been safe, predictable, and trauma-free. Even the fortunate children who have not been trauma- tized outside of school may experience shame and humiliation in the class- room. Too many children therefore grow up hating school, think they are stupid and incapable, and soon give up on themselves and the process of academic learning. But many grow up to become adult learners who eventually need to return to school. This chapter reviews fundamental issues that may help educators better understand the nearly one-third of the adult population who bring to their classroom a history of abuse, neglect, developmental chaos, or violence that influences their capacity to learn, as well as those who, in response to stress-inducing pedagogical methods, have acquired cumulative educational trauma leading to fear conditioning. 21 3 NEW DIRECTIONS FOR ADULT AND CONTINUING EDUCATION, no. 110, Summer 2006 © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) • DOI: 10.1002/ace.215 This work was supported in part by grants from the Richard Weekley Family Fund of the Houston Community.