Attachment to fathers and mothers in preschoolers with an Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis.

We examined whether the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) is applicable not only for assessing children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and their mothers but also with their fathers. Forty preschoolers with ASD were observed in the SSP with their mothers and 39 with their fathers. Unexpectedly, the SSP was found to be not applicable (NA) to 25% of the SSPs with fathers because levels of attachment behavior were minimal, but all SSPs with mothers were codable.

Attachment quality of children with ID and its link to maternal sensitivity and structuring.

Background: Attachment theory produced a fertile field of research and clinical application. Although the topic of attachment of children with intellectual disability (ID) has received increasing research attention over the past 15 years, the empirical evidence is still limited.

Aims: We applied theoretical and empirical knowledge of parenting typically developing children to examine the mother-child relationship in the ID population.

Disorganized reasoning in Holocaust survivors.

In 2 related studies of nonclinical Israeli samples, the long-term sequelae of traumatic Holocaust experiences were investigated from an attachment perspective. In each study, Holocaust survivors were compared with participants who had not experienced the Holocaust, and their attachment style and state of mind with regard to past and present attachment experiences as well as their state of mind regarding unresolved loss were assessed. In both studies, the Holocaust groups were found to be significantly more inclined to show disoriented thought processes around trauma than were the groups without Holocaust background.

Failed mourning in the Adult Attachment Interview: the case of Holocaust child survivors.

In the present study attachment theory was used as a conceptual framework to investigate the long-term effects of the Holocaust on child survivors. Child survivors who as children lost both mothers and fathers as a result of the Holocaust (N=48), were administered the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) in their late adulthood. They were expected to display enduring disorganization from their horrible experiences with loss of attachment figures, and indeed the results confirmed the lasting effects of the Holocaust on the survivors who displayed a very high rate of unresolved loss (U; 42%).

Absence of Attachment Representations (AAR) in the adult years: the emergence of a new AAI classification in catastrophically traumatized Holocaust child survivors.

In the present study we present a new and rare type of discourse in the AAI which is characterized by absence of attachment representations during adulthood. Forty-eight women, who as children lost both parents as a result of the Holocaust, were administered the AAI in their late adulthood. Two cases in this sample could not be assigned to any of the traditional AAI classification system (F, Ds, E, CC), mainly because they were unable to associate themselves with any significant attachment figure throughout their life.

Attachment and traumatic stress in female holocaust child survivors and their daughters.

Objective: During the Holocaust, extreme trauma was inflicted on children who experienced it. Two questions were central to the current investigation. First, do survivors of the Holocaust still show marks of their traumatic experiences, even after more than 50 years? Second, was the trauma passed on to the next generation?

Method: Careful matching of Holocaust survivors and comparison subjects was employed to form a research study design with three generations, including 98 families with a grandmother, a mother, and an infant, who engaged in attachment- and trauma-related interviews, questionnaires, and observational procedures.

Shedding further light on the effects of various types and quality of early child care on infant-mother attachment relationship: the Haifa Study of Early Child Care.

The Haifa Study of Early Child Care recruited a large-scale sample (N = 758) that represented the full SES spectrum in Israel, to examine the unique contribution of various child-care-related correlates to infant attachment. After controlling for other potential contributing variables--including mother characteristics, mother-child interaction, mother-father relationship, infant characteristics and development, and the environment--this study found that center-care, in and of itself, adversely increased the likelihood of infants developing insecure attachment to their mothers as compared with infants who were either in maternal care, individual nonparental care with a relative, individual nonparental care with a paid caregiver, or family day-care. The results suggest that it is the poor quality of center-care and the high infant-caregiver ratio that accounted for this increased level of attachment insecurity among center-care infants.