Emotional competence and behavior problems: Differences across Preschool Assessment of Attachment classifications

Abstract

This study examined attachment in association with preschoolers' emotional functioning among 54 predominantly low-income families living in Appalachia. Attachment was assessed at age 4 years using the Strange Situation (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978) and classified with the PAA (Crittenden, 2004). Emotional competence was measured via an interview about children's memories for six emotions, rated in terms of both emotion understanding and regulation. Parent-, teacher-, and self-reports of children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms were also completed. Questionnaires and interviews assessed socioeconomic risk and parental symptoms and negative childhood experiences. Children's PAA strategies were significantly associated with risks, emotion regulation and understanding, and symptoms. Children using highly coercive strategies showed the greatest difficulties. Emotion regulation and understanding also were associated with parent- and teacher-report of symptoms. These findings suggest that intervention efforts with at-risk youngsters should target not only attachment security, but also emotional competence skills.

Mood assessment via animated characters: An instrument to access and evaluate emotions in young children

“…Termed "emotional competence" or "emotional understanding", this ability predicts later academic competence in preschoolers, and its absence has been linked to parent-and teacher-reports of mental health symptoms in this age group [3,4]. Emotional responses are largely physiological in infants, but become linked to specific cognitions and actions with experience and development [5].…”

Desenvolvimento da Compreensão Emocional

“…Da mesma forma, baixos níveis de regulação e compreensão emocional estão significativamente associados com relatos de problemas comportamentais de pais e professores (Kidwell et al, 2010). As crianças que interpretam as mensagens emocionais dos outros com maior precisão pontuam melhor nas escalas de aprovação social.…”

The Maternal Role On Emotional Competence Development of Early Childhood

“…Children with compulsive attachment exhibit lower emotional competence than other types of insecure attachment (Kidwell, Young, Hinkle, Ratliff, Marcum, & Martin, 2010). Bo-Ram, Stifter, Philbrook & Teti (2014) emphasized secure attachment as predictor of emotion regulation strategies.…”

“…Similarly, there are also variance in the attachment measurement method. Some of those methods are laboratory observation, such as Strange Situation Procedure (Kidwell, 2010;Spangler & Zimmermann, 2014;Bo-Ram, Stifter, Philbrook & Teti, 2014) Likewise, there is variation in maternal emotion socialization assessment. Some of them are metode self-report, yaitu Self-Expressiveness in the Family Questionnaire Perlman et al, 2008), The Family Expressiveness Questionnaire (Ellis, Alisic, Reiss, Dishion, & Fisher (2013).…”

“…findings showed that there were variations in the measurement of children's emotional competence. For example,Kidwell et al (2010) used an interview method using pictures to measure children's knowledge of emotions and emotional expressions. Colle & Gaudice (2010) used emotional recognition tests and knowledge tests on regulatory strategies.…”