Late-adopted children grown up: a long-term longitudinal study on attachment patterns of adolescent adoptees and their adoptive mothers

Abstract

This paper reports on a long-term follow-up of a longitudinal study conducted in Italy that assessed attachment patterns of late-adopted children (placed between 4 and 8 years old) and their adoptive mothers, in three phases: T1, at placement; T2, in childhood (7 to 8 months after adoption); and T3, in adolescence (current study). The following hypotheses were tested: 1) children' IWMs will shift from insecurity towards security in a long-term followup; and 2) there will be a significant association between adoptees' and adoptive mothers' IWMs in adolescence. Participants were 22 late-adopted adolescents (aged 11-16) and their adoptive mothers, all assessed in previous phases. Participants completed several measures of attachment, including the Separation-Reunion Procedure (T1, T2), Manchester Child Attachment Story Task (T2), Friends and Family Interview (T3), and Adult Attachment Interview (T1, T3). Late-adopted adolescents showed both an increase in attachment security and a decrease in disorganized attachment from childhood to adolescence. Adoptive mothers' (T1 and/or T3?) secure states of mind were associated significantly(?) to their adopted children attachment security in adolescence. These findings reinforce the importance of taking attachment into account for adoptive families from the beginning of adoption.

What's Happened to Italian Adolescents During the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Preliminary Study on Symptoms, Problematic Social Media Usage, and Attachment: Relationships and Differences With Pre-pandemic Peers

“…The FFI shows good psychometric proprieties (56,(62)(63)(64)(65)). Cronbach's α for the reliability was 0.74 in this study.…”

“…Regarding this point, participants and pre-pandemic groups selected slightly differed in gender or age, possibly reducing the magnitude of the results for the comparisons on attachment and social media usage. More extensive studies with participants more balanced for gender and age should examine the role of these demographics, as pre-pandemic literature suggest girls as more secure and older teenagers more secure in attachment, and lower problematic social media usage in boys and at older ages (23,63).…”

Parent and Child’s Negative Emotions During COVID-19: The Moderating Role of Parental Attachment Style

“…In detail, those with preoccupied and fearful attachment styles show stronger negative emotional reactions when facing negative events (Gentzler et al, 2010). Insecure attachment strategies will repeatedly activate and suppress negative emotions, and continue to rely on the distorted self and others, leading to poor physical and mental health (Mikulincer and Shaver, 2019;Pace et al, 2019).…”

Factor structure of the Friends and Family interview

“…Importantly, classifications of adolescents as secure and dismissive, respectively, based on the FFI, are associated with distinct patterns of behavior and brain activation when processing emotional stimuli (facial expressions) (Escobar, Rivera‐Rei, Decety et al ., ). The FFI has been extensively used in adoption samples (e.g., see Pace, ; Pace et al ., ; ; Pace, Di Folco, Guerriero, Santona & Terrone, ), with secure responses among adopted children being less frequent early after placement, but more common over time.…”

“…Nevertheless, robust inter‐rater reliability has been demonstrated in both community (Breinholst, Esbjørn & Steele, ; Psouni & Apetroaia, ) and at‐risk samples (Breinholst, Tolstrup & Esbjørn, ; Esbjørn, Breinholst, Kriss, Hald & Steele, ; Escobar & Santelices, ; Pace, Di Folco & Guerriero, ), and construct validity in relation to concurrently assessed attachment scripts and self‐reported security (Psouni & Apetroaia, ). Furthermore, classifications of children based on the FFI are concordant with classifications from the SSP (Kriss, et al ., ; Steele & Steele, ), and, in adopted children, with the mothers’ attachment IWM classifications based on the AAI (Pace, Di Folco, Guerriero & Muzi, ). In addition, one of the FFI measures, coherence, appears similar across different countries and cultures (Stievenart, Casonato, Muntean & Van den Schoot, ).…”