Children's emotional and relational development can be negatively influenced by maternal substance abuse, particularly through a dysfunctional caregiving environment. Attachment Theory offers a privileged framework to analyze how drug addiction can affect the quality of adult attachment style, parenting attitudes and behaviors toward the child, and how it can have a detrimental effect on the co...

STEEP(TM) was one of the first attachment-based early intervention programs. The program applied findings from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study on Risk and Adaptation to the development of a supportive program for young high-risk mothers and their infants. STEEP's effectiveness was evaluated first in a randomized controlled study launched in 1987. The study showed effects of the one-year interv...

Attachment and caregiving are separate motivational systems that share the common evolutionary purpose of favoring child security. In the goal of studying the processes underlying the transmission of attachment styles, this study focused on the role of adult attachment styles in shaping preferences toward particular styles of caregiving. We hypothesized a correspondence between attachment and c...

Seventeen sets of opposite sex twins, 13 to 14 months old, were observed in a playroom situation with their mothers. Attachment behaviors, toy preference, style of play, and activity level were recorded. Analysis of four attachment behaviors indicated that girls looked at, vocalized to, and maintained proximity with their mothers significantly more often than did their brothers. Girls also touc...

introduction: mother as the main attachment figure has an undeniable effect on affective development of the child. the aim of the current study was to investigate the relationship and predictability of girls` attachment problems through mothers` attachment style. method: sample included 388 individuals of second and fourth grade of primary school that had been chosen through multistage cluster ...

This study investigated continuity and stability of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) and sympathetic nervous system (SNS) response measures in mother-infant dyads across 2 different types of social stress sessions. Synchrony of response trajectories across systems (SNS-HPA coordination) and partners (mother-infant attunement) was addressed, as were associations with infant temperament. Prim...

A 15 item mother-infant attachment scale was developed. It is a simple, brief and easy to comprehend even by the illiterate rural woman. The split half reliability was found to be 0.83 and there was high internal consistency. It has high face and construct validity. The babies separated for longer period had shown lesser attachment subsequently, compared to those who had no separation.

Infants born preterm are at elevated risk for social emotional difficulties. However, factors contributing to this risk are largely understudied. Within the present study, we explored infant sleep as a biosocial factor that may play a role in infant social emotional development. Within a prospective longitudinal design, we examined parent-reported sleep patterns and observed parenting quality a...

Despite important recent progress in understanding disorganized attachment, we still lack a full understanding of the mechanisms of disorganized attachment formation and transmission prior to 12 months. In this paper we lay out our recommendations for the study of the 4-month origins of disorganized attachment. In our subsequent Paper II we report on the results of a large empirical study that ...

Attachment theory is the joint work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991 ). Drawing on concepts from ethology, cybernetics, information processing, developmental psychology, and psychoanalysts, John Bowlby formulated the basic tenets of the theory. He thereby revolutionized our thinking about a child’s tie to the mother and its disruption through separation, deprivation, ...