Sustained effects on attachment security in middle childhood: results from a randomized clinical trial of the Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC) intervention.
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ABSTRACT: Background
Interventions have been developed to promote the development of secure and organized attachments during early childhood among children who have experienced early adversity, yet little is known about whether the effects of these early interventions are sustained beyond 12 months postintervention. The current study examined whether receiving the Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-Up (ABC) intervention during infancy led to improvements in perceived attachment security in middle childhood among 100 Child Protective Services (CPS)-referred children.Methods
Children and parents were randomized to receive ABC or a control intervention during infancy. Children completed the Kerns Security Scale at age nine (Mage = 9.46, SD = 0.36). (Trial Registry Name: Intervening Early with Neglected Children; Registry ID: NCT02093052; URL for registry: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02093052?term=dozier&rank=1).Results
Children whose parents received ABC reported higher levels of attachment security on the Kerns Security Scale at age nine than children whose parents had received the control intervention, t(98) = 2.31, p = .023, d = 0.49.Conclusions
Findings underscore the long-term benefits of intervening early to promote caregiving quality among at-risk families and demonstrate the efficacy of a brief 10-session intervention in promoting attachment security over the span of eight years in a sample of CPS-referred children.
SUBMITTER: Zajac L
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7135967 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:ImportanceParenting interventions have been found to normalize cortisol regulation among high-risk children early in development; it is important to investigate the sustainability of these effects and their mechanisms, given the maladaptive outcomes associated with cortisol dysregulation.ObjectiveTo determine whether the Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC) intervention, implemented in infancy, predicts cortisol regulation in middle childhood via changes in early parental sensitivity.DesignDouble blind randomized clinical trial design; started January 2006, the follow-up for this project concluded March 2016.SettingParents of children under age 2 referred from child protective services agencies in a large, mid-Atlantic city.Participants103 parent-child dyads (45.6% female children) with histories of child protective services involvement, randomly assigned to receive ABC (n = 45) or a control intervention (n = 58); in infancy, the children's ages ranged from 1.60 to 25.30 months (M = 9.87 months); at the middle childhood follow-up, they ranged from 8.0 to 11.0 years old (M = 8.52 years).InterventionsBoth conditions included 10-week, in-home, manualized interventions. The experimental condition, ABC, has 3 primary targets for parents: increasing nurturance to child distress, increasing following the child's lead, and decreasing frightening behavior. The control intervention, Developmental Education for Families (DEF), is an adaptation of a program focused on enhancing cognitive and language development.Main outcomes and measuresParental sensitivity was coded from a semi-structured interaction task between the parent and child in early childhood. Middle childhood diurnal cortisol slopes were modeled by collecting salivary cortisol samples from children at wake-up and bedtime over the course of 3 consecutive days.ResultsABC participation in infancy was associated with increased parental sensitivity post-intervention, β = 0.28, p = .004, and this increased sensitivity predicted steeper decline across the day in children's cortisol concentration in middle childhood, β = -.53, p = .002. The indirect effect of ABC on cortisol regulation via sensitivity was significant, β = -0.15, p = .038.Conclusions and relevanceABC has an indirect effect on middle childhood diurnal cortisol regulation via parental sensitivity; future research should seek to determine how this enhanced neurobiological regulation relates to children's behavioral, socioemotional, and psychological outcomes.Trial registrationclinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT02093052.
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Project description:Children adopted internationally experience adverse conditions prior to adoption, placing them at risk for problematic social-emotional development. The Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC) intervention was designed to help internationally adoptive parents behave in ways that promote young children's social-emotional competence. Participants included 131 parent-child dyads randomly assigned to receive either ABC (n = 65) or a control intervention (n = 66). In addition, 48 low-risk biologically related parent-child dyads were included as a comparison group. At follow-up assessments conducted when children were 24 to 36 months old, internationally adopted children who received the ABC intervention had higher levels of parent-reported social-emotional competence than children who received a control intervention. In addition, observational assessments conducted when children were 48 and 60 months of age showed that internationally adopted children who received ABC demonstrated higher social-emotional competence than children who received a control intervention. Adopted children who received the control intervention, but not the ABC intervention, displayed more difficulties with social-emotional competence than low-risk children. Finally, postintervention parent sensitivity mediated the effect of ABC on observed child social-emotional competence in parent interactions, controlling for preintervention parent sensitivity. These results demonstrate the efficacy of a parenting-focused intervention in enhancing social-emotional competence among children adopted internationally.
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Project description:Children who have been adopted internationally often exhibit persistent behavior problems. The current study assessed the efficacy of the Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up intervention (ABC; Dozier & Bernard, 2019) for reducing behavior problems in 122 children adopted internationally. Behavior problems were measured via parent-report using the Brief Infant Toddler Social Emotional Assessment at a pre-intervention visit and after the intervention when children were between 18 and 36 months. Children's behavior problems were also observed using the Disruptive Behavior Diagnostic Observation Schedule (DB-DOS) after the intervention when children were 48 and 60 months. Parents who received ABC reported fewer child behavior problems than parents who received the control intervention immediately after the intervention through 1.5 years post-intervention. Additionally, children whose parents received ABC exhibited fewer behavior problems within the parent context of the DB-DOS when they were 48 months old (2 years post-intervention) than children whose parents received the control intervention. There were no significant intervention effects on children's observed behavior problems within the examiner contexts. These results support the efficacy of ABC in reducing behavior problems among children adopted internationally. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00816621.
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Project description:For humans, visual tracking of moving stimuli often triggers catch-up saccades during smooth pursuit. The switch between these continuous and discrete eye movements is a trade-off between tolerating sustained position error (PE) when no saccade is triggered or a transient loss of vision during the saccade due to saccadic suppression. de Brouwer et al. (2002b) demonstrated that catch-up saccades were less likely to occur when the target re-crosses the fovea within 40-180 ms. To date, there is no mechanistic explanation for how the trigger decision is made by the brain. Recently, we proposed a stochastic decision model for saccade triggering during visual tracking (Coutinho et al., 2018) that relies on a probabilistic estimate of predicted PE (PEpred). Informed by model predictions, we hypothesized that saccade trigger time length and variability will increase when pre-saccadic predicted errors are small or visual uncertainty is high (e.g., for blurred targets). Data collected from human participants performing a double step-ramp task showed that large pre-saccadic PEpred (>10°) produced short saccade trigger times regardless of the level of uncertainty while saccade trigger times preceded by small PEpred (<10°) significantly increased in length and variability, and more so for blurred targets. Our model also predicted increased signal-dependent noise (SDN) as retinal slip (RS) increases; in our data, this resulted in longer saccade trigger times and more smooth trials without saccades. In summary, our data supports our hypothesized predicted error-based decision process for coordinating saccades during smooth pursuit.
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Project description:BackgroundAttachment research has been limited by the lack of quick and easy measures. We report development and validation of the School Attachment Monitor (SAM), a novel measure for largescale assessment of attachment in children aged 5-9, in the general population. SAM offers automatic presentation, on computer, of story-stems based on the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task (MCAST), without the need for trained administrators. SAM is delivered by novel software which interacts with child participants, starting with warm-up activities to familiarise them with the task. Children's story completion is video recorded and augmented by 'smart dolls' that the child can hold and manipulate, with movement sensors for data collection. The design of SAM was informed by children of users' age range to establish their task understanding and incorporate their innovative ideas for improving SAM software.Methods130 5-9 year old children were recruited from mainstream primary schools. In Phase 1, sixty-one children completed both SAM and MCAST. Inter-rater reliability and rating concordance was compared between SAM and MCAST. In Phase 2, a further 44 children completed SAM complete and, including those children completing SAM in Phase 1 (total n = 105), a machine learning algorithm was developed using a "majority vote" procedure where, for each child, 500 non-overlapping video frames contribute to the decision.ResultsUsing manual rating, SAM-MCAST concordance was excellent (89% secure versus insecure; 97% organised versus disorganised; 86% four-way). Comparison of human ratings of SAM versus the machine learning algorithm showed over 80% concordance.ConclusionsWe have developed a new tool for measuring attachment at the population level, which has good reliability compared to a validated attachment measure and has the potential for automatic rating-opening the door to measurement of attachment in large populations.
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Project description:A longstanding question for attachment theory and research is whether genetically based characteristics of the child influence the development of attachment security and its stability over time. This study attempted to replicate and extend recent findings indicating that the developmental stability of attachment security is moderated by oxytocin receptor (OXTR) genetic variants. Using longitudinal data from over 550 individuals, there was no evidence that OXTR rs53576 moderated the association between attachment security during early childhood and overall coherence of mind ("security") during the Adult Attachment Interview at age 18 years. Additional analyses involving a second commonly investigated OXTR variant (rs2254298) and indices of individuals' dismissing and preoccupied attachment states of mind also failed to provide robust evidence for oxytonergic moderation of the stability in attachment security across development. The discussion focuses on research strategies for investigating genetic contributions to attachment security across the life span.
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Project description:BACKGROUND: To inform early intervention practice, the present research examines how child anxiety, behavioural inhibition, maternal overinvolvement, maternal negativity, mother-child attachment and maternal anxiety, as assessed at age four, predict anxiety at age nine. METHOD: 202 children (102 behaviourally inhibited and 100 behaviourally uninhibited) aged 3-4 years were initially recruited and the predictors outlined above were assessed. Diagnostic assessments, using the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule, were then conducted five years later. RESULTS: Behavioural inhibition, maternal anxiety, and maternal overinvolvement were significant predictors of clinical anxiety, even after controlling for baseline anxiety (p<.05). No significant effect of negativity or attachment security was found over and above baseline anxiety (p>.1). CONCLUSIONS: Preschool children who show anxiety, are inhibited, have overinvolved mothers and mothers with anxiety disorders are at increased risk for anxiety in middle childhood. These factors can be used to identify suitable participants for early intervention and can be targeted within intervention programs.
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