Do children with intellectual disabilities (ID) show attachment behavior towards their professional caretaker? Five children, varying in chronological age, developmental age and DSM-diagnosis, were observed in a day care setting. Their attachment behavior was described by means of the Attachment Q-sort. Attachment behavior varied within and…

Maternal substance abuse is the most common factor involved when children come to the attention of the child welfare system. Although there is a clear need for clinical trials to evaluate parenting interventions for drug-dependent women, few studies to date have systematically examined the efficacy of interventions for this population. We first…

The characteristics of parental attachment were assessed for a sample of 81 emerging adults (ages 22-28 years) and their mothers. Emerging adults' reports of self-worth were found to mediate the relationship between their reports of parental attachment and depressive symptoms. The emerging adults' unique perspectives of the attachment relationship…

education and psychotherapy that is based on attachment theory. The purpose of this study was to track changes in children's attachment classifications pre- and immediately postintervention. Participants were 65 toddler- or preschooler- caregiver dyads recruited from Head Start and Early Head Start programs. As predicted, there were significant…

Research on moral behavior in children is sorely lacking in the behavioral literature. Yet, behavioral research documenting effective treatment of children with behavioral and emotional problems has often failed to generalize or to focus on moral behavior. Developmental psychologists have researched moral behavior and have provided models of moral…

There are many postulates of a relation between quality of attachment with theory of mind and language functions (e.g., de Rosnay & Hughes, 2006). The current study examined in longitudinal design how different patterns of attachment are associated with usage of internal state language at ages 17, 23, 30 and 36 months. Transcripts of mother-child…

The relation of attachment security to multiple domains of psychosocial functioning was examined in a community sample of 167 early adolescents. Security of attachment organization, assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview, was linked to success in establishing autonomy while maintaining a sense of relatedness both with fathers and with…

Viewed from the perspective of attachment theory, coping with the separation and divorce of parents requires that children reorganize their mental model of attachment. Secure attachment models may be disrupted, while insecure attachment models may be strengthened. According to findings from research on divorce, this process of family…

We compared two common measures of parenting behavior, the Children's Report of Parental Behavior Inventory (CRPBI) and the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI), evaluating their psychometric properties and predictive ability. One hundred sixty seven college students completed the CRPBI, PBI, and measures of depression and anxiety with 123…

Research spanning the fields of social, developmental, and neuropsychology provides cogent and comprehensive evidence that experiences in the very early years of a child's life serve as a foundation for later academic performance, behavior, personality, and social skills. In recent years, researchers have begun to identify complex…

This study examined associations between infant-mother attachment, assessed using Ainsworth's Strange Situation at 12-months, and mother-child narrative co-construction in 110 Israeli mothers and their 71/2 year-old children to examine aspects of Bowlby's (1973) notion of "Goal-Corrected Partnerships". Narrative co-constructions were…

This study examined the linkages between identity formation and romantic attachment in an ethnically diverse sample of high school (n=189) and college students (n=324). Individuals in the foreclosed identity status group had significantly lower relationship avoidance scores than the diffused identity status group, and the foreclosed group had…

Using attachment theory as a framework, this paper examines how pregnant adolescents' experiences of physical maltreatment during childhood influence the subsequent mother-infant relationship in 203 low-income adolescents followed from the 3rd trimester of pregnancy through the 1st year of parenthood. The relation between physical maltreatment…

This study explored the dynamic interaction between a mother and her 11-month-old visually impaired infant before and after the mother was taught infant massage. After the mother learned infant massage, she had more appropriate physical contact with her infant, engaged with him within his field of vision, directly vocalized to him, and had a…

The aim of this study was to explore the lived experience of women's attachment injuries within heterosexual couple relationships. An interpretative, phenomenological approach (van Manen, 1990) was used in this exploratory study. Four women participated in three separate research interviews in order to illuminate the phenomenon of "attachment…