The Placement of Children in Need of Out-of-Home Care: Forms of Care and Differences in Attachment Security and Behavioral Problems in the Italian Context.

The current paper investigated differences in secure attachment levels and behavioral problems among four groups of children in out-of-home care in Italy: closed adoption (child and birth parents not in contact following adoption), open adoption (child and birth parents still in contact after placement), foster care (child living temporarily with relatives or unrelated foster parents) and institutional care (child in residential care for large groups of children). One hundred and thirty children aged 10-19 were included in this study. The Attachment Interview for Childhood and Adolescence and the Achenbach Youth Self-Report were employed to measure participants' secure attachment levels and behavioral problems.

Relation between fluid intelligence and mathematics and reading comprehension achievements: The moderating role of student teacher relationships and school bonding.

Several studies have shown the relevance among students of the quality of their interpersonal relationships for their academic achievement. Nevertheless, most studies available have explored the relation between the cognitive functioning and academic achievement without taking into account the quality of the relationships experienced in the school environment. Furthermore, the studies that have begun to consider the joint role of these factors in the prediction of academic achievement are scant.

The role of maladaptive personality traits on psychological stress the mediating effects of COVID-19-related worries and emotional dysregulation.

There is increasing evidence that dysfunctional personality traits, related to psychological maladjustment and psychopathology, can play an important role in a person's ability to cope with major stressful events. Relatively little is known about the specific effect of the emotional component on the relationship between maladaptive personality traits and psychological stress. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between the maladaptive personality traits of psychoticism, detachment, and negative affect, and psychological stress, considering the effects of COVID-19-related worries and emotional dysregulation.

Emotion Regulation in Toddlerhood: Regulatory Strategies in Anger and Fear Eliciting Contexts at 24 and 30 Months.

The study investigated the emergence of toddlers' regulatory strategies in aversive contexts. Forty-two toddlers were observed at 24 and 30 months of age using two paradigms designed to elicit fear and anger. We examined toddlers' use of regulatory strategies at these two stages of life regarding the frequency of self-versus other-oriented strategies and of reactive versus more controlled behaviors.

The Role of Parenting, Dysregulation and Self-Esteem in Adolescents' Problematic Social Network Site Use: A Test of Parallel and Serial Mediation Models in a Healthy Community Sample.

The study addresses some gaps in the current understanding of adolescents' Problematic Social Network Site Use (PSNSU) by exploring the role of parenting as a precursor, and dysregulation and self-esteem as possible mediators. The sample includes 148 parents (15% fathers) and their adolescent offspring (23% male, age ranging from 14 to 18 years old, = 15.96, = 1.

Maternal mind-mindedness during the first year of life: Developmental trajectories and moderators.

Mind-mindedness (MM) refers to caregivers' proclivity to treat a child as having an active and autonomous mental life. It has been shown to be a powerful predictor of many developmental outcomes and to mitigate the impact of risk conditions. However, longitudinal studies on MM reporting changes over time and individual differences among mothers have been scant and quite inconclusive, mainly due to the investigation of changes between only two time points.

Psychological counseling in the Italian academic context: Expected needs, activities, and target population in a large sample of students.

University psychological counseling (UPC) is receiving growing attention as a means to promote mental health and academic success among young adults and prevent irregular attendance and dropout. However, thus far, little effort has been directed towards the implementation of services attuned to students' expectations and needs. This work intends to contribute to the existing literature on this topic, by exploring the perceptions of UPC among a population of 39,277 students attending one of the largest universities in the South of Italy.

Parenting practices and dysregulation profile in a sample of Italian children.

Background: emotional dysregulation is a transdiagnostic factor linked to a heightened risk for psychopathology. A dysregulation profile (DP) derived from the Strenght and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is often used to indirectly assess emotional dysregulation in children and adolescents. Theoretical models account for parenting as a causal and maintaining factor for emotional dysregulation.

Verbal - prosodic association when narrating early caregiving experiences during the adult attachment interview: differences between secure and dismissing individuals.

Previous studies reported an inconsistency between verbal extracts and emotional physiological activation in dismissing individuals when narrating their early caregiving experience at the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). This study aimed to explore this discrepancy by analyzing the degree of concordance between verbal content and prosodic characteristics, index of physiological activation, when dismissing and secure individuals discuss negative childhood memories during the AAI. Results showed that secure participants presented a high coherence between verbal content and emotional activation, as expressed by prosody, revealing a reprocess of negative experiences that is the core feature of the development of secure working models.

Associations between Learning and Behavioral Difficulties in Second-Grade Children.

Learning and behavioral difficulties often emerge during the first years of primary school and are one of the most important issues of concern for families and schools. The study was aimed at investigating the co-occurrence of difficulties between academic learning and emotional-behavioral control in typically developing school children and the moderating role of sex. A sample of 640 second-grade school children participated in the study.

The Apple of Daddy's Eye: Parental Overvaluation Links the Narcissistic Traits of Father and Child.

This study contributes to the literature on the parental correlates of children's narcissism. It addresses whether parental overvaluation may drive the putative link between parents' narcissism and children's narcissism and self-esteem. The cross-sectional design involved a community sample of 519 school-age children (age ranging from 9 to 11 years old) and their parents from an Italian urban context.

The role of cognitive and non-cognitive factors in mathematics achievement: The importance of the quality of the student-teacher relationship in middle school.

There is increasing evidence that several factors, including both cognitive and non-cognitive ones, play an important role in mathematics achievement. Relatively little is known about how socio-emotional features and the quality of the student-teacher relationship correlate with mathematics achievement among adolescents in transition to middle school. The aim of the present study is to examine the role of cognitive factors (general cognitive abilities), non-cognitive factors (math anxiety and self-esteem), and the quality of the student-teacher relationship on mathematics achievement.

Teaching of cursive writing in the first year of primary school: Effect on reading and writing skills.

There is increasing evidence that mastering handwriting skills play an important role on academic achievement. This is a slow process that begins in kindergarten: at this age, writing is very similar to drawing (i.e.

Attachment style: The neurobiological substrate, interaction with genetics and role in neurodevelopmental disorders risk pathways.

Literature has suggested that attachment insecurity has been previously associated with subsequent onset of several psychiatric conditions characterized by emotion dysregulation. Nevertheless, only few studies have investigated the neurobiological basis of attachment style and whether attachment insecurity may share a common neurobiological substrate with neurodevelopmental disorders. In this narrative contribution, we aimed to review existing literature on functional neurobiological correlates of attachment style to further understand (1) specific neurobiological patterns associated with attachment security variation, and (2) whether it is possible to identify a neurobiological overlap between attachment insecurity-related and neurodevelopmental disorders-related anomalies.

Confidence in Attachment Relationships and Marital Status as Protective Factors for Self-Perceived Parental Role and In-Person Visitation with Children Among Incarcerated Fathers.

The study aimed at investigating the role of confidence in attachment relationships and marital status as protective factors for incarcerated fathers' self-perceived parental role and in-person contacts with their children. Participants included 150 inmate fathers and 145 nonincarcerated control fathers who provided background sociodemographic information and completed two self-reports, the Attachment Style Questionnaire and the Self-Perception of Parental Role. A two-phased cluster analytic plan allowed us to highlight two profiles of self-perceived parental roles, with incarceration and low confidence in attachment relationships increasing the risk of the less optimal of the two profiles.

Preterm birth enhances the contribution of mothers' mind-mindedness to infants' expressive language development: A longitudinal investigation.

Maternal mind-mindedness has been shown to be a powerful predictor of many developmental outcomes and to buffer the impact of psychosocial risk conditions, but no study has investigated whether this parental feature might support child development in the presence of biological risk, such as preterm birth. The present study addresses this gap, by investigating whether early maternal mind-mindedness contributes to the growth of a child's linguistic abilities in the following two years of life, and if the contribution of this maternal feature might be stronger in the presence of preterm birth. Forty mother-child dyads (twenty with a preterm infant) were followed longitudinally, with maternal mind-mindedness assessed at 14 months of age and child's expressive linguistic abilities at 24 and 36 months through observational measures.

It is a matter of how you say it: Verbal content and prosody matching as an index of emotion regulation strategies during the Adult Attachment Interview.

Emotional activation can be detected by the prosodic properties of the voice. This study aimed to explore the match between the valence of the words used by secure and dismissing women in describing the relationship with their parents during the Adult Attachment Interview and their emotional activation as expressed through the prosody of the voice. Contrary to what observed for secure women, a discrepancy emerged in dismissing individuals between the content of their verbal reports during the interview and the emotional activation of their voice while speaking.

The transmission of attachment across three generations: A study in adulthood.

One of the most striking pieces of evidence in attachment research is that attachment security is transmitted from 1 generation to the next. Although there has been an enormous advance in the understanding of this process, this area of research suffers from some significant gaps, as for example the transmission across 3 generations when considering the 2 parents as well as the 2 couples of grandparents. The current study was designed to fill this gap in existing literature by investigating AAI attachment representations in the members of 3 generations, belonging to a total of 32 families, each including an adult offspring, both parents and the 4 grandparents (N = 224).

Patterns of emotion regulation at two years of age: associations with mothers' attachment in a fear eliciting situation.

The study aims at identifying patterns of mother-toddler emotion regulation and testing whether they are related to mothers' attachment. An Italian community sample (N = 38; 66% males) was followed longitudinally, with mothers' attachment collected through the Adult Attachment Interview at 14 months of child's age and mothers' and children's emotion regulation behaviors assessed through a fear-eliciting lab procedure when the child turned two years old. Two dyadic regulatory patterns were identified through a two-phased cluster analytic plan.

The transmission of attachment across generations: The state of art and new theoretical perspectives.

The paper reviews the body of research testing the intergenerational transmission of attachment and the theoretical shift from the linear or mediation model (van IJzendoorn, 1995), according to which parental sensitivity is the main factor responsible for the correspondence between maternal and infant's attachment, to the ecological model of the transmission of attachment (van IJzendoorn & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 1997). This latter model has prompted researchers, over time, to identify potential mediators, other than caregiver's sensitivity, of the established association between parental representations regarding attachment and infant's attachment, as well as the potential moderators of the transmission process. Each of these two research domains will be carefully explored; lastly new perspectives on the intergenerational transmission of attachment and relevant areas of research needing more investigation are highlighted.

The latent structure of secure base script knowledge.

There is increasing evidence that attachment representations abstracted from childhood experiences with primary caregivers are organized as a cognitive script describing secure base use and support (i.e., the secure base script).

Relationships between regulatory temperament dimensions and self-regulatory behaviors at 4 and 6 months of age.

The present study focused on relationships between temperament and behavior in early regulation development. Unlike most studies on the topic, we observed infant behavior in a naturalistic playful situation rather than in experimental stressful procedure, and employed temperament measures uniquely reflecting regulatory dispositions rather than a global measure of reactivity. The infant's self-regulatory behaviors were observed at 4 and 6 months during face-to-face interactions and regulatory dimensions were assessed at 4 months.

Bullying in preschool: The associations between participant roles, social competence, and social preference.

The different roles of bullying participation (bully, follower, victim, defender of the victim, and outsider) have not been investigated in preschool children. The aims of this study were to use a peer-report measure to assess these roles and to investigate their associations with social competence among pre-schoolers. We also explored whether status among peers, indicated by being socially preferred, mediates the relationship between social competence and bullying roles.

In search of social support in the NICU: features, benefits and antecedents of parents' tendency to share with others the premature birth of their baby.

Objective: To investigate social sharing among 40 parents (20 couples) of hospitalized premature newborns, the social network of addressees with whom they shared their experience, the perceived benefits of this activity and the sources of individual differences.

Method: Emotional reaction and attachment status were assessed within 7 days and between 30 and 45 days from birth, respectively. At 3 months of infant's corrected age, parents completed a self-report assessing retrospectively their social sharing.

Is the secure base phenomenon evident here, there, and anywhere? A cross-cultural study of child behavior and experts' definitions.

The evolutionary rationale offered by Bowlby implies that secure base relationships are common in child-caregiver dyads and thus, child secure behavior observable across diverse social contexts and cultures. This study offers a test of the universality hypothesis. Trained observers in nine countries used the Attachment Q-set to describe the organization of children's behavior in naturalistic settings.