Attachment In Middle Childhood Research Articles

Middle childhood attachment is related to adolescent early maladaptive schemas

Middle childhood attachment is related to adolescent early maladaptive schemas

Associations between secure base script knowledge in early childhood and perceived quality of attachment in middle childhood

Previous studies suggest that mental representations of attachment can show moderate stability across childhood but none of these considered the child’s use of the Secure Base Script (SBS). This study tested the longitudinal stability of attachment representations from early to middle childhood, providing data that will allow us to determine whether the SBS score behaves like other attachment measures for early childhood in this regard. A sample of 70 Portuguese preschool children (36 girls) was assessed regarding their access to and use of the SBS when producing narratives relevant to attachment themes (e.g., separation, fear of ambiguous threat) at age 5 years using the Attachment Story Completion Task. Follow-up assessments were obtained at 8 and 9 years of age using the Kerns Security Scale. Security scores for both parents were obtained from the child in both years. All cross-time correlations were positive and significant. Subsequent tests on correlation magnitudes for mothers vs. fathers were not significant. Finally, correlations for mother/father security scores were significant at both age levels. Our findings indicate that children’s access to and use of the SBS in early childhood does predict their perceived quality of attachment with parents in middle childhood. Overall, our results indicate that access to and use of SBS in young children’s attachment-relevant narratives is a valid and potentially productive measure.

Signs of Disorganization in Middle Childhood Attachment Narratives

Children with disorganized attachment are not a unified category. This study examined different signs of disorganization in school-age children’s attachment narratives, whether the signs clustered into specific profiles of disorganization, and if the profiles were associated with children’s continuous attachment ratings and mental health. Our binational sample of 8- to 12-year-old children (n = 33) had disorganization as their primary attachment classification. Attachment was measured with the Story Stem procedure and mental health symptoms were measured with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Fifteen different signs of disorganization were found that clustered into four unique profiles distinguished by chaotic-frightening, hostile-punitive, caregiving, and dissociative signs. Children with more punitive and frightening signs in their profiles displayed higher attachment disorganization and ambivalence, whereas caregiving and dissociative profiles were associated with attachment avoidance, and the dissociative profile also with more mental health symptoms. Subtypes of middle childhood disorganization need more research and are also important to recognize in clinical practice.

A Systematic Review of Representational and Behavioral Measures of Parent-Child Attachment Available for Middle Childhood

A variety of parent-child attachment measures, representing a range of conceptual approaches, have been adapted for use in middle childhood. A recent surge in studies using the new methods makes a comprehensive review of these measures timely. This systematic review of 67 studies covers representational and behavioral measures of parent-child attachment used with children 9–12 years old. This paper aims to evaluate parent-child attachment measures with an emphasis on understanding their theoretical bases in addition to considering the available validity evidence. Findings identify several independently well-validated representational measures, and they highlight a continued need to investigate direct comparisons of the measures, as very little research has considered how the measures relate to each other, both conceptually and empirically. Behavioral measures of attachment in middle childhood, which are relatively new, are identified as potentially important in developing a better understanding of attachment measurement in this age group.

The School Attachment Monitor-A novel computational tool for assessment of attachment in middle childhood.

Attachment research has been limited by the lack of quick and easy measures. We report development and validation of the School Attachment Monitor (SAM), a novel measure for largescale assessment of attachment in children aged 5-9, in the general population. SAM offers automatic presentation, on computer, of story-stems based on the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task (MCAST), without the need for trained administrators. SAM is delivered by novel software which interacts with child participants, starting with warm-up activities to familiarise them with the task. Children's story completion is video recorded and augmented by 'smart dolls' that the child can hold and manipulate, with movement sensors for data collection. The design of SAM was informed by children of users' age range to establish their task understanding and incorporate their innovative ideas for improving SAM software. 130 5-9 year old children were recruited from mainstream primary schools. In Phase 1, sixty-one children completed both SAM and MCAST. Inter-rater reliability and rating concordance was compared between SAM and MCAST. In Phase 2, a further 44 children completed SAM complete and, including those children completing SAM in Phase 1 (total n = 105), a machine learning algorithm was developed using a "majority vote" procedure where, for each child, 500 non-overlapping video frames contribute to the decision. Using manual rating, SAM-MCAST concordance was excellent (89% secure versus insecure; 97% organised versus disorganised; 86% four-way). Comparison of human ratings of SAM versus the machine learning algorithm showed over 80% concordance. We have developed a new tool for measuring attachment at the population level, which has good reliability compared to a validated attachment measure and has the potential for automatic rating-opening the door to measurement of attachment in large populations.

Disorganized/controlling attachments, emotion regulation, and emotion communication in later middle childhood

We assessed how disorganized and controlling attachments (disorganized/disoriented, caregiving/role-confused, hostile/punitive) in later middle childhood relate to children's emotion regulation and emotion communication skills (N = 87). Disorganized and controlling behaviors were assessed with the Middle Childhood Attachment Strategies Coding System (MCAS). Concurrent assessments of children's emotion regulation and communication included maternal and child self-reports, as well as observer ratings. Children with greater disorganization/disorientation showed lower emotion awareness, more difficulty managing their emotions, and poorer emotion expressiveness. Unique to children with greater hostile/punitive behaviors was greater affect intensity. In contrast, children with more caregiving/role confused behaviors spoke more in emotion conversations with their mothers and were part of mother-child dyads who rely on more positive words when discussing conflicts, suggesting that they have greater communication responsibility. Our findings underscore the importance of assessing each disorganized and controlling pattern in middle childhood to understand how disorganization and emotion development are related.

Gratitude: A Resilience Factor for More Securely Attached Children

Research on the association between childhood attachment and depressive symptoms has primarily focused on the role of risk factors. This resulted in a lack of research on the role of potential resilience factors. In the current study, we suggest that middle childhood secure attachment is linked to adolescents’ trait gratitude, which is linked to the enhanced resilience against the development of depressive symptoms in adolescence. In a longitudinal study, we measured 157 children’s (9–12 years old, 48% boys) attachment appraisals (anxiety, avoidance, and trust), attachment representations (secure base script knowledge, and coherence) and depressive symptoms at baseline, and gratitude and depressive symptoms at follow-up two years later. Results supported our hypotheses that middle childhood attachment was robustly linked with adolescent trait gratitude. Moreover, trait gratitude indirectly linked middle childhood attachment avoidance, trust, and secure base script knowledge to change in depressive symptoms over time. These findings may help explain why more securely attached children are less likely to develop depressive symptoms.

Situational Modulation of Emotion Recognition Abilities in Children With Secure and Insecure Attachment: The Role of Gender

Objective: Considering the role of attachment in the emotional development of children, the purpose of this study was to test the situational modulation of emotion recognition in children with secure/insecure attachment with regard to gender in Iranian students. Methods: this casual comparative study was done on a pool of 200 students aged 7-9 years from elementary schools of Tehran, Iran. The participants completed the Middle Childhood Attachment Scale (MCSA), of whom 60 children were assigned to two groups based on their scores on MCAS (secure vs. insecure). They read stories developed to manipulate the attachment schema, and after each story, they were tested for emotion recognition abilities (classification and intensity rating). Happy, sad, angry, and fearful faces were presented and reaction time was recorded using the AFFECT4.0 software. Results: All children irrespective of attachment style, were faster in the identification of others’ emotional expressions in attachment situations than in a neutral situation. Boys made more errors in attachment situations than in the neutral situation, while for girls it did not differ. Among children with secure attachment, boys were faster than girls in recognition of emotion. Conclusion: In terms of attachment theory, attachment styles could have an important impact on the development process of the child’s emotional skills.

T128. ATTACHMENT REPRESENTATIONS IN CHILDREN AT FAMILIAL HIGH RISK OF SEVERE MENTAL DISORDERS. ASSOCIATIONS WITH PSYCHOPATHOLOGY, LEVEL OF FUNCTIONING, AND PSYCHOTIC EXPERIENCES

BackgroundThere is evidence of higher rates of insecure and disorganized attachment in infancy in children born to parents with severe mental disorders, but evidence on attachment in middle childhood for these children is lacking. This study aims to explore attachment representations in seven-year-old children born to parents with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. We also aim to explore possible associations between attachment and psychopathology, level of functioning, and psychotic experiences in these children.- We expect that children at familial high risk will have the highest levels of insecure and disorganized attachment. We expect that population based controls will have the lowest levels of insecure and disorganized attachment and higher levels of security than children at familial high risk.- We expect higher levels of insecure and disorganized attachment to be associated with an increased risk of psychopathology, and psychotic experiences and with lower levels of functioning, whereas we expect higher levels of secure attachment to be associated with a lower risk of psychopathology, and psychotic experiences, and with higher levels of functioning.MethodsThe Danish High Risk and Resilience Study VIA 7 is a prospective cohort study of 522 seven-year-old children born in Denmark. The cohort consists of children where one or both parents have been diagnosed with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder (N=202), children where one or both parents have been diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder (N=120) and children where neither of the parents have been diagnosed with these disorders (N=200). Attachment representations were assessed with the Story Stem Assessment Protocol whereas psychopathology, level of functioning, and psychotic experiences were assessed with K-SADS.ResultsData analyses are ongoing but preliminary results indicate that there are no significant differences in attachment representations between the three groups of children, but that there are associations between higher rates of insecure and disorganized attachment and a higher risk of psychopathology. Results will be presented at the SIRS-conference.DiscussionUnderstanding attachment and its correlates in children at familial high risk of severe mental disorders is important in order to strengthen our understanding of developmental trajectories towards mental disorders in these children.

Factor structure of the Friends and Family interview.

The aim of this study was to specify the latent construct structure of the Friends and Family Interview (FFI: Steele & Steele, 2005) based on its dimensional scale coding protocol. The FFI is a semi-structured interview measuring attachment in middle childhood. We analyzed data from 341 FFI interviews with children aged 7-12years, recruited in the Scandinavian Öresund Region. Exploratory Factor Analysis revealed a three-component model as best fitting the data. The first component, denoting attachment security, gathered all dimensional scales for evidence of secure base/safe haven regarding mother/father and coherence in the child's narrative style, along with scales regarding reflective functioning, self-perception, and social functioning. The second component comprised preoccupying feelings of anger, but also derogation. The third component gathered all scales coding idealization. Inter-relations among the components were consistent with attachment theory, and respondents' scores for all three components differed significantly across the four categorical attachment classifications. Affect regulation of negative emotion through anger and through derogation co-occurred, and was distinct from regulation through maintaining a belief that things are better than they appear (idealization). These two affect regulation strategies appeared commonly when reflective functioning, and an organized self-perception, and positive peer relations were less in evidence. The multi-dimensional FFI coding system appears to measure successfully these diverse features of the child's narrative provided in response to the interview. Overall, our findings support the construct validity of the FFI and provide further evidence of its usefulness for assessing attachment in middle childhood and early adolescence.

Attachment to mothers and fathers during middle childhood: an evidence from Polish sample

BackgroundMiddle childhood is a significant period of change both for a child’s cognition and social functioning. Considering that the primary developmental theme of attachment in middle childhood is the balance between child’s growing autonomy and the constant need of relatedness, cultural differences in developmental trends in the attachment might be considered as a function of individualism and collectivism orientations. However, little is known about whether the findings on predictors of individual differences in the attachment in middle childhood found in Western cultures, hold within the non-Western ones. Moreover, still little is known about differences between attachment to mothers and fathers in middle childhood. Hence, one goal of the present study was to investigate the role of a child’s age, sex, and emotionality in a middle-childhood attachment to mothers and fathers in the Polish sample. The second aim was to compare obtained results to the attachment research that focused on Western cultures.MethodsThe sample consisted of 132 children aged 8–12 years (51% boys). They completed the Kern’s Security Scale and the Coping Strategies Questionnaire. Mothers completed a child’s EAS-C and short sociodemographic questionnaire. Pearson’s correlations were conducted to test relationships between a child’s age, sex, emotionality, SES, and attachment-related variables. A paired-samples t-test was used to compare the intensity of preoccupied and avoidant coping strategies with parents in the whole sample. The effects of a child’s age, sex, temperament, and attachment figure were tested with separate repeated-measures ANOVA.ResultsSome of the results replicated prior studies conducted in Western cultures. Similarly to the individualistic cultures, older Polish children reported less preoccupied and more avoidant coping strategies with their parents than younger children. Second, older girls reported higher felt-security with their fathers than with mothers, which suggests some significant changes in attachment relationships regarding the child’s sex. However, as opposed to Western cultures, there were no links between the child’s sex and preoccupied and avoidant coping. Polish children also reported higher rates of preoccupied coping than the avoidant one. Finally, children with relatively lower emotionality reported higher attachment security with both parents than children with relatively higher emotionality.ConclusionsThe current study extends previous work on attachment in middle childhood, the area of rather sparse research, as compared to other developmental periods. The findings reveal the existence of both some specificity in the middle-child attachment in the Polish sample, as well as some culture-universal developmental trends. However, as many questions remain unanswered, they also highlight the strong need for future cross-cultural and comparative studies.

Measuring insecure attachment in middle childhood: Psychometric evaluation of the short form of the Preoccupied and Avoidant Coping Questionnaire

The short form of the Preoccupied and Avoidant Coping Questionnaire (PACQ; Younger, Corby, Perry, 2005) is a widely used self-report questionnaire measuring insecure attachment toward mother and father in middle childhood. However, its factorial structure has not yet been examined, and evidence concerning its concurrent and convergent validity is extremely sparse. In Study 1 (N = 378, M = 9.37 years), we evaluated the factorial structure of the PACQ and its measurement invariance across Italian boys and girls. In Study 2 (N = 199, M = 9.27 years), we tested the mutual associations between the PACQ and the Experiences in Close Relationships–Revised Child version (ECR-RC; Brenning, Van Petegem, Soenens, 2014), and their convergent and predictive validity. Results supported the factorial validity of the PACQ, its satisfactory internal consistency and structural invariance across child gender. However, findings lent only partial support to the association between the PACQ and the ECR-RC, and convergent and predictive validity were found only for the avoidance subscale of these questionnaires. Overall, the Italian version of the PACQ is a psychometrically sound instrument to assess insecure attachment in middle childhood, but further research is needed to shed light on the conceptual significance of the preoccupied dimension.

Observation of Attachment Disorder Symptoms in Middle Childhood

Observation of Attachment Disorder Symptoms in Middle Childhood Attachment in childhood is mainly assessed by observation. In contrast, assessment of attachment disorder symptoms (RAD) is mainly based on caregiver reports. The present study uses a newly developed observation tool (Coding of Attachment Disorder Behavior in Children; Iwanski u. Zimmermann, 2013) to assess attachment disorder symptoms in a group of school-aged children from a risk group for the development of attachment disorder symptoms and non-clinical controls. In addition, caregiver reports on RAD symptoms are also assessed (Relationship Problems Questionnaire; Minnis, Rabe-Hesketh, Wolkind, 2002; Disturbances of Attachment Interview; Smyke u. Zeanah, 1999). Moreover, associations with children's self-concept (Harter, 2012) were studied. Results reveal that children at risk showed more inhibited and disinhibited attachment disorder symptoms and a more negative self-concept compared to non-clinical controls. RAD symptoms are shown in interaction with both the caregiver and a stranger. The use of a reliable and valid observation tool for the diagnostic of attachment disorder symptoms besides ratings of caregivers is recommended for clinical practice and research.

Middle Childhood Attachment Strategies: validation of an observational measure

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study was to assess behavioral manifestations of attachment in middle childhood, and to evaluate their relations with key theoretical correlates. The sample consisted of 87 children (aged 10–12 years) and their mothers. Dyads participated in an 8-min videotaped discussion of a conflict in their relationships, later scored with the Middle Childhood Attachment Strategies Coding System (MCAS) for key features of all child attachment patterns described in previous literature (secure, ambivalent, avoidant, disorganized-disoriented, caregiving/role-confused, hostile/punitive). To assess validity, relations among MCAS dimensions and other measures of attachment, parenting, and psychological adjustment were evaluated. Results provide preliminary evidence for the psychometric properties of the MCAS in that its behaviorally assessed patterns were associated with theoretically relevant constructs, including maternal warmth/acceptance and psychological control, and children’s social competence, depression, and behavioral problems. The MCAS opens new grounds for expanding our understanding of attachment and its outcomes in middle childhood.

Interpretation bias in middle childhood attachment: Causal effects on attachment memories and scripts

Attachment theory implies the causal influence of interpretation bias on the attachment-related expectations. Previous research demonstrated that training children to interpret maternal behavior as more supportive increased their trust in maternal support. The current study explored possible training effects on two attachment script-related processes: recollection of attachment-related memories and secure base script knowledge. Children (9–12 years old; N = 84) were assigned to either a secure training condition, training children to interpret mother's behavior as supportive, or a neutral placebo condition, where interpretations about maternal behavior were unrelated to support. Findings replicated the training effect on interpretation bias and trust. Furthermore, children's recollection of attachment-related memories became more positive. No training effect was found for secure base script knowledge.

The Child Attachment Interview: A Narrative Review.

Attachment theory promoted an impressive body of research on the psychic developmental processes, resulting in studies on both typical and atypical development. Much of the diffusion of the attachment theory in the clinical field was related to the design of reliable instruments to evaluate the organization of attachment in infancy as well as in adulthood. Until recently, the lack of a suitable instrument to assess attachment in middle childhood as well as in adolescence hindered the expansion of research in these developmental phases during which the parent-child relationship takes on a different, albeit still crucial, role. The Child Attachment Interview (CAI), a measure that was recently designed to assess attachment at a representational level in middle childhood and adolescence, filled the measurement gap. The aim of the current review was to summarize previous empirical investigations concerning CAI in order to (a) provide an overview of the state of current research, (b) identify unanswered questions, and (c) propose future research directions. A narrative review was conducted to map the current research findings by searching for the term “Child Attachment Interview” in the Medline, Scopus, Web of Science, and PsychINFO databases, followed by a search in Mendeley. Limits were set to exclude dissertations, chapters in books, and qualitative or theoretical papers, while empirical studies were included if they used the CAI and were published in English language, peer-reviewed journals by July, 2016. The review, which ultimately included 39 studies meeting the criteria, showed that the CAI is a reliable instrument to assess attachment organization in clinical and non-clinical samples, thus providing a worthwhile contribution to the investigation of the influence of the parent-child relationship beyond infancy and early childhood. Nevertheless, the review pointed out a number of relevant open issues, the most critical of which concerned the CAI coding and classification system. In particular, some relevant questions arose about (a) how opportune it would be to maintain a distinct classification for mother and father, (b) coding challenges regarding both the father and the Preoccupied and Disorganized classification, and finally (c) the advantage of a dimensional vs. a categorical approach.

Assessing Attachment to Parents and Peers in Middle Childhood: Psychometric Studies of the Portuguese Version of the People in My Life Questionnaire

The People in My Life questionnaire (PIML) is one of the few available self-report measures for assessing children’s representations of the relationship with attachment figures (parents and peers) in middle childhood. The current study presents validation studies of the PIML in a sample of Portuguese children aged between 8 and 12 years (N = 314) and adolescents aged between 13 and 18 years (N = 281). The original factor structure, composed of a second-order factor of attachment and three first-order factors (Trust, Communication, and Alienation), was confirmed for both scales (Parents Attachment and Peers Attachment) in the sample of children and replicated in the sample of adolescents using confirmatory factor analyses. The Portuguese version of the PIML showed adequate internal consistency and correlated as expected with measures of intrapersonal and interpersonal functioning (internalizing and externalizing problems, prosocial behavior, quality of life, self-compassion, and emotion regulation strategies). The PIML proved to be a psychometrically robust measure of children’s representations of their relationships with parents and peers, representing an important advance in the measurement of attachment in middle childhood.

Testing the Incremental Value of a Separate Measure for Secure Attachment Relative to a Measure for Attachment Anxiety and Avoidance

Abstract. Research on attachment in middle childhood and early adolescence has typically relied on either unidimensional measures of attachment security (vs. insecurity) or on differentiated measures of attachment anxiety and avoidance. This study addressed the question whether there is a need to add an explicit measure of security when operationalizing parent-child attachment in terms of anxiety and avoidance. Both dimensional (i.e., regression analyses) and person-centered analyses (i.e., cluster analysis) are used in this study (N = 276, 53% boys, mean age = 10.66) to examine the incremental value of a scale for attachment security (in this study, the Security Scale) in addition to a scale for attachment anxiety and avoidance (in this study, the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale-Revised – Child version; ECR-RC). The present results suggest that an assessment of anxious and avoidant attachment (using the ECR-RC) may suffice to capture the quality of parent-child attachment in middle childhood and early adolescence.

School-Aged Children’s Attachment Dismissal Prospectively Predicts Divergence of Their Behavioral and Self-Reported Anxiety

Recent studies on attachment in middle childhood suggest that dismissing children tend to underreport their psychological distress relative to physiological indices of distress. However, this has yet to be examined in the context of behavioral indicators of distress. In this longitudinal study, a community sample of children (N = 34, M age = 9.59 years) completed the Child Attachment Interview at Time 1. Three years later, they returned and completed the Trier Social Stress Task for Children (TSST-C), providing ratings of their state anxiety before and after the stressor. Four raters coded children’s behavioral signs of anxiety (e.g., non-signaling gestures, eye movement, posture, facial expression) on a 7-point scale during the storytelling and arithmetic tasks in the TSST-C. Hierarchical linear regressions revealed that greater attachment dismissal was associated with greater behavioral anxiety in both the story and math tasks, but was not associated with greater increases in self-reported anxiety. Dismissal prospectively predicted increased divergence of behavioral and self-reported anxiety, such that higher dismissal was associated with higher divergence scores (i.e., underreporting of anxiety relative to behavioral indicators). We discuss these results in terms of their contribution to understanding attachment and emotion in an understudied developmental phase.

Narratives of attachment in middle childhood: do gender, age, and risk-status matter for the quality of attachment?

ABSTRACTAttachment in middle childhood increasingly attracts the interest of developmental psychologists and clinicians. Recent studies using attachment narratives elicited by story stems reported gender-specific aspects of attachment development, potentially evoked by developmental tasks during this period of the life span. There is evidence that children with risk factors present more insecure and disorganized attachment narratives compared to children without risk. Yet, there is little research concerning the joint effects of gender, risk, and age for attachment classifications. The paper presents a pooled analysis of 22 samples (eight risk samples) including 887 children (411 girls), aged between 4.5 and 8.5 years who were assessed with the same “German Attachment Story Completion Procedure” (GASCP). Girls were 1.8 times more likely to present secure and 0.4 times less likely to present disorganized narratives compared to boys when controlling for risk status and age. Children from risk samples were more likely (odd ratio 5.4) to display disorganized and less likely to show a secure attachment (odd ratio 0.3) compared to those from no-risk samples in multilevel logistic regressions. Remarkably, the effect of risk was not moderated by age and gender, and gender effects were not moderated by age.