Disorganized attachment and social skills as indicators of Head Start children's school readiness skills.

The relationships among social skills, dysregulation of symbolic representations of attachment, and school readiness were examined. Participants were 74 preschool children from low-income families in Midwest America. Attachment representations and dysregulation of symbolic representations of attachment were assessed using a story completion task (George & Solomon, 2000) and teachers completed a survey of child behavior, which was used to assess social skills and school readiness skills. Dysregulated content in children's narratives and social skills were significant negative correlates of school readiness. There was also a marginally significant negative association between defensive dysregulation and school readiness skills for children classified as disorganized. Furthermore, a specific marker of dysregulation, controlling behavior toward the administrator, was negatively associated with school readiness, but only for children classified as disorganized. Results from this study suggest that a breakdown in the strategies of insecure/organized children may be a risk factor for low levels of school readiness and that different forms of disorganization may be associated with different types of risk. It may be useful for future studies to account for different forms of disorganization and evidence of a breakdown of strategy.