Attachment

To assess the quality of attachment in infancy, researchers often use a tandardized separation-reunion method called the Strange Situation Procedure, in which infants’ reactions to being reunited with their caregiver after a brief separation are used to assess how much trust the children have in the accessibility of their attachment figure.

There are four patterns of infant-caregiver attachment. Infants who actively seek proximity to their caregivers on reunion, communicate their feelings of stress and distress openly and then readily return to exploration are classified as secure. This type of attachment is believed to develop when the caregiver consistently responds to the child’s distress in a sensitive manner. Infants who ignore or avoid the caregiver after being reunited are classified as insecure-avoidant. This is believed to develop when the caregiver consistently responds to the child’s distress in ways that are rejecting.

Infants who combine strong contact maintenance with contact resistance, or who remain inconsolable without being able to return to explore the environment, are classified as insecure-ambivalent. This develops when the caregiver responds in ways that are inconsistent and unpredictable. Finally, some infants do not seem able to resort to a single, organized attachment pattern. This is called disorganized attachment, and is believed to develop when the caregiver displays unusual and ultimately frightening behaviours in the presence of the child.

For a normative population, it is reported that about 62% of infants are classified as secure, 15% as insecure-avoidant, 8% as insecure-ambivalent and 15% as disorganized.¹

Secure attachment is considered a protective factor as it has been associated with better developmental outcomes in areas such as self-reliance, self-efficacy, empathy and social competence in toddlerhood, school-age and adolescence. Infants with insecure attachment have been shown to be at risk for later adaptation problems such as conduct disorder, aggression, depression and anti-social behaviour.

Children with disorganized attachment are at the highest risk for psychopathology. There is a high percentage of attachment disorganization among children who have been victims of maltreatment. An array of  parental behaviours has been linked to infant disorganization. These include affective communication errors (such as contradictory responses to infant signals), parental withdrawal, negative-intrusive responses, role-confused responses, disoriented responses and frightened or frightening behaviours.

Negative life events (such as divorce) can compromise attachment security, but differences in attachment security result primarily from the children’s interactions with their social environment during the first few years of life. Parenting therefore plays a crucial role. For this reason, preventive interventions in early childhood have enormous potential to alter behavioural and developmental trajectories, especially in high-risk families.

Reference