Preschool assessment of attachment: construct validity in a sample of depressed and nondepressed families.

Journal ArticleConstruct validity of the newly developed Preschool Assessment of Attachment (PAA) was examined in a sample of depressed and nondepressed mothers and their preschoolers, focusing on attachment related differences in children's general caregiving environments, maternal psychosocial functioning, and child behavior during interactions with mother. Mothers of secure children were more emotionally and verbally responsive to their children than were mothers of insecure children, and secure children were emotionally more positive to their mothers than were insecure children. Mothers of secure children also reported higher levels of social supports than did mothers of insecure children. Finally, dyads with children who lacked unitary, coherent attachment strategies (i.e., anxious depressed, defended/coercive, and insecure other) showed the worst functioning in all domains relative to all other attachment groups. Similar but slightly less robust findings were obtained with socioeconomic variables statistically controlled. These results lend support to the PAA as a valid system for the conceptualization and measurement of quality of attachment among preschoolers. Future research applications with the PAA are discussed

Mother-toddler interaction patterns associated with maternal depression.

Journal ArticleInteractive coordination was observed in laboratory play interactions of pairs of 29 clinically depressed and 14 nondepressed mothers and their 13-29-month-old children (M = 18.9 months). Nondepressed mothers and their children displayed more interactive coordination than depressed-mother dyads (p < .001). Depressed mothers were less likely to repair interrupted interactions, and their toddlers were less likely to maintain interactions than nondepressed controls. Toddlers matched their nondepressed but not their depressed mothers' negative behavior rates. Results suggested that early interventions focus on training mothers to attend to, maintain, and repair mother-child interactions to more closely approximate normal levels of interactive coordination

Characteristics of Venezuelan school refusers toward the development of a high-risk profile

Journal ArticleParent, teacher, and child reports were used to identify situational and personal factors associated with school refusal in 114 3- to 13-year-old Venezuelan children. The sample consisted of 57 school refusers and 57 nonrefusers matched on age, school, and sex. As compared with nonrefusers, the refusers had changed schools more often, were rated as more dependent, had more school-related fears, and were perceived by their parents as more difficult to manage

Maternal Depression and the Quality of Early Attachment An Examination of Infants, Preschoolers, and Their Mothers

Relations between maternal depression and attachment security among 50 infant-mother and 54 preschool child-mother dyads were examined using the classification system of M. D. S. Ainsworth, M. C. Blehar, E. Waters, and S. Wall (1978) and M. Main and J. Solomon (1990) for infants and the Preschool Assessment of Attachment ( P. M. Crittenden, 1992b ) for preschoolers. Attachment insecurity was significantly associated with maternal depression among infants and preschoolers. Furthermore, children without unitary, coherent attachment strategies tended to have more chronically impaired mothers than did children with coherent, organized attachment strategies. Results stress the importance of severity-chronicity of parental illness in the study of depression and early attachment relations, and that differences between children with and without coherent, organized attachment strategies are as clinically informative as are differences between secure and insecure children