Behavioural precursors of attachment representations in middle childhood and links with child social adaptation

Abstract

Concordance between age-6 attachment behaviour and age-8 doll play attachment representations during the school-age period, and associations between these measures and child social adaptation at school were examined. One hundred and twenty-nine 6-year-olds and their mothers participated in a separation/reunion protocol. Two years later, 104 children completed a doll play narrative task. Teachers evaluated child behaviour problems and prosocial behaviour at both ages. Results showed a significant four-way concordance between age-6 attachment behaviour and age-8 doll play classifications. Each of the four attachment classifications was concordant in the absence of major negative life-events, but only the disorganized classifications remained concordant when at least one negative life-event occurred between the two assessment times. Children with a disorganized attachment classification or representation had higher externalizing scores than secure and avoidant children at both timepoints. Finally, the avoidant and disorganized behavioural classifications predicted avoidant and disorganized representations, respectively, even when controlling for age-6 teacher reports of social adaptation.

The significance of attachment security for children’s social competence with peers: a meta-analytic study

“…Several studies presented data on (partly) overlapping samples (e.g., Bureau & Moss, 2010; Moss, Parent, Gosselin, Rousseau, & St-Laurent, 1996). Because participants cannot be included in a meta-analysis more than once, the papers that reported on the earliest outcome assessment were included in our meta-analysis (e.g.…”

“…Because participants cannot be included in a meta-analysis more than once, the papers that reported on the earliest outcome assessment were included in our meta-analysis (e.g. Bureau & Moss, 2010), except when the earliest outcome assessment focused on a sub-sample of participants from the larger longitudinal sample (e.g., data from Sroufe, Egeland, & Carlson [1999] were used because they report on the earliest outcome assessment from the full Minnesota longitudinal sample). Several studies reported on data from multiple types of social competence assessments.…”

Children's attachment-related self-worth: a multi-method investigation of postdivorce preschoolers’ relationships with their mothers and peers

“…Since the early 1990s, studies too numerous to review here have confirmed that semi-projective representational attachment measures, elicited via pictures or play narratives, reflect children's infancy or concurrent attachment classifications with their actual mothers (see brief reviews in Bureau & Moss, 2010;Miljkovitch, Pierrehumbert, Bretherton, & Halfon, 2004). The current study included one of these measures, the Attachment Story Completion Task (ASCT) in view of its demonstrated associations with a modified Strange Situation with mother at three years, and maternal insight/sensitivity assessed with a semi-structured interview (Bretherton, Biringen, Ridgeway, Maslin, & Sherman, 1989).…”

Attachement et adaptation psychosociale chez des enfants hébergés en centre jeunesse

“…Cette modalité d'évaluation a été utilisée dans plusieurs études effectuées auprès d'enfants ayant subi de la maltraitance (Macfie et al, 1999;Steele et al, 2007;Toth et al, 2000;Venet, Bureau, Gosselin et Capuano, 2007 (George et Solomon, 1990, 1996. Le système de codage par catégories s'apparente de façon significative à la classification comportementale de Cassidy et Marvin (1992) (Bureau et Moss, 2010;Solomon, George et De Jong, 1995). Il permet de distinguer quatre types : confiant, désinvolte, occupé et effrayé qui, malgré leurs appellations distinctes, correspondent aux types d'attachement de la classification comportementale.…”