Measuring socioemotional functioning in a national birth cohort study

Abstract

An accumulating body of research suggests that the capacities children acquire that prepare them for learning in formal educational settings are multilevel and complex with multiple contributing factors that begin in infancy. A new U.S. longitudinal study, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), is designed to enable researchers to examine how an array of children's capacities and skills function individually and jointly to promote or hinder the acquisition of school readiness. The ECLS-B follows a nationally representative sample of 10,688 children born in the U.S. in 2001. Baseline data on the children and their families were collected at 9 months of age with follow-up at ages 2, 4, and kindergarten entry. Information on study children's socioemotional development is derived from several sources: videotaped mother-child interactions, parent interviews, and field staff observations. Because attachment is such an important indicator of children's socioemotional development during the toddler period, the study devoted considerable resources to designing an attachment measure. The Toddler Attachment Sort-45 (TAS-45) was designed to meet the need for a simple yet valid measure that did not require extensive training for field staff to administer easily. The TAS-45 generates the classical attachment categories and security and dependency scores.

Evidence-Based Parenting Interventions to Promote Secure Attachment

“…Furthermore, in the general population, approximately 60% of infants have secure attachment, 68 while approximately 35% display some form of insecure attachment pattern. 69 Disorganized attachment rates are approximately 15% in the general population but can be up to 35% in high-risk groups such as teenage parent families.…”

Attachment Security and Obesity in US Preschool-Aged Children

“…38-40 The in-home data collection allowed the data collector to observe the mother and child for approximately 2 hours. After the home visit, the data collector sorted 45 “cards” based on how well the behavior described on each card applied to the child.…”

“…the data collector) hold or share toys.” Data collectors received >5 hours of training, and were required to demonstrate their ability to administer the attachment sort in a reliable and valid manner. 40 From the attachment sort a continuous measure of attachment security (security score) was derived. This was a score that could range from −1 to 1, with higher values indicating a more secure child.…”

Validity of the TAS-45 as a measure of toddler–parent attachment: preliminary evidence from Early Head Start families

“…The TAS-45 was developed by a research team led by Kirkland and Bimler (Bimler & Kirkland, 2002; Kirkland, Bimler, Drawneek, McKim, Schölmerich, & Axel, 2004), supported in part by the U.S Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics for inclusion in the 24-month child assessment of the national Early Child Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B; Andreassen, Fletcher, & Park, 2006; Andreassen & West, 2007). Although the TAS-45 was developed to assess child-parent attachment quality for two-year-olds in the ECLS-B, child assessment age ranged from 16 to 39 months, with 98% of the children between 22 and 28 months of age.…”