Does Language Matter? Examining Immigrant Youths’ Language as a Means of Assessing Attachment Security

Abstract

In the United States (U.S.), migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border reached a record high in December 2023. Many of these encounters involve Latinx immigrant youth and families. Concurrently, research documents alarmingly high rates of trauma exposure and other risk factors that can increase mental health risk in this population. Attachment theory proposes that early in life, all individuals have a behavioral need to seek contact and proximity to an attachment figure and that lacking access to an available caregiver may amplify a child's normal fear response to a threatening situation, increase the risk for psychopathology, pathological levels of anxiety and fear, and, in cases of prolonged separation, contribute to anxious attachment. There is mounting evidence that Latinx immigrant youth may face attachment disruptions or attachment trauma. Therefore, attachment theory may be beneficial for understanding these youths' experiences, difficulties, and possible outcomes. Currently, immigrant youth are likely to seek healthcare in low-resource settings with no available resources for measuring internal working models of attachment using traditional interview-based measures. This study sought to assess attachment security within this vulnerable population using a computerized text analysis program called Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC). This study aimed to score maternal attachment style, paternal attachment style, and overall coherence (i.e., security) for Child Attachment Interview (CAI) transcripts in Spanish analyzed in LIWC. The central hypothesis was that automated scoring on LIWC variables would demonstrate moderate accuracy compared to trained human coders and achieve the CAI's benchmark qualification of 80% reliability on the standard reliability training cases. The sample included 109 recently immigrated high school students from Central America. LIWC metrics were not successful in distinguishing a Secure from an Insecure classification for both maternal and paternal attachment and overall coherence (high versus low overall coherence). However, this study’s exploratory analyses provide insights into the importance of language (as operationalized by LIWC) in relation to internal working models of attachment. Given the exploratory nature of this study, replication is crucial