Attachment and emotional understanding: a study on late-adopted pre-schoolers and their parents.

Objective: The aim of this study was to characterize the role of attachment in adoption, first by assessing the influence of adoptive parents on their late-adopted children and second by investigating the role of children's attachment on an emotional understanding task.

Design: On children's arrival into adoptive families, parents' attachment was evaluated. After 12-18 months, children's attachment towards mothers and fathers was assessed. Twelve months later, children participated in an emotional understanding task.

Method: Parents' attachment was assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview. Children's attachment and emotional understanding were evaluated respectively using the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task and the Test of Emotion Comprehension.

Results: A correspondence of 80% (security vs. insecurity) and 60% (security vs. avoidant or ambivalent insecurity K= 0.40) between mothers' and children's pattern of attachment was found. A secure state of mind in both adoptive parents was a protective factor towards children's attachment disorganization. Finally, there was a significant association between children's security of attachment and their performance on the emotional understanding task.

Conclusion: Adoption appears to be an intervention that assures the adoptive child an opportunity to catch up on emotional development and to partially resolve prior traumatic attachment experiences; adoptive parents play a central role in the emotional adjustment of their children.