M.H. van IJzendoorn

Phonological awareness and early reading: A meta-analysis of experimental training studies.

In a quantitative meta-analysis, the effects of phonological awareness training on reading were shown. In a homogeneous set of U.S. studies with a randomized or matched design, the combined effect sizes for phonological awareness and reading were d = 0.73 (r = .34, N = 739) and d = 0.70 (r = .33, N = 745), respectively. Thus, experimentally manipulated phonological awareness explains about 12% of the variance in word-identification skills. The combined effect size for long-term studies of the influence of phonological awareness training on reading was much smaller, d = 0.16 (r = .08, N = 1,180). Programs combining a phonological and a letter training were more effective than a purely phonological training. Furthermore, training effects were stronger with posttests assessing simple decoding skills than with real-word-identification tests. In sum, phonological awareness is an important but not a sufficient condition for early reading.

Dopamine system genes associated with parenting in the context of daily hassles

The current study examined the molecular genetic foundations of sensitive parenting in humans and is the first to test the interaction between genes and environment in modulating parental sensitive responses to children. In a community sample of 176 Caucasian, middle class mothers with their 23‐month‐old toddlers at risk for externalizing behavior problems, the association between daily hassles and sensitive parenting was investigated. We tested whether two dopamine‐related genes, dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) and catechol‐O‐methyltransferase (COMT) gene polymorphisms, modulate parents’ vulnerability to the negative influence of daily hassles on sensitive parenting behavior to their offspring. Sensitive parenting was observed in structured settings, and parents reported on their daily hassles through a standard questionnaire. In parents with the combination of genes leading to the least efficient dopaminergic system functioning (COMT val/val or val/met, DRD4‐7Repeat), more daily hassles were associated with less sensitive parenting, and lower levels of daily hassles were associated with more sensitive parenting d = 1.12. The other combinations of COMT and DRD4 polymorphisms did not show significant associations between daily hassles and maternal sensitivity, suggesting differential susceptibility to hassles depending on parents’ dopaminergic system genes. It is concluded that the study of (multiple) gene–environment interactions (in the current case: gene by gene by environment interaction, G × G × E) may explain why some parents are more and others less impacted by daily stresses in responding sensitively to their offspring’s signals.

The Universality of Childhood Emotional Abuse: A Meta-Analysis of Worldwide Prevalence

This comprehensive meta-analysis combined prevalence figures of child emotional abuse reported in 29 studies, including 46 independent samples with a total of 7,082,279 participants. The overall estimated prevalence was 3/1,000 for studies using informants and 363/1,000 for studies using self-report measures of child emotional abuse. Procedural factors seem to exert a greater influence on the prevalence of childhood emotional abuse than sample characteristics and definitional issues, without fully explaining the vast variation of prevalence rates reported in individual studies. We conclude that child emotional abuse is a universal problem affecting the lives of millions of children all over the world, which is in sharp contrast with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Patterns of attachment in frequently and infrequently reading mother-child dyads

ABSTRACT This study explored the relationship between the quality of the mother–child attachment and how often mothers read to their children. Eighteen children who were read to infrequently were matched to a group of children who were read to daily, for sex, age, and socioeconomic status. The childrens mothers read them a booklet, mother and child were observed in a reunion episode, the children completed the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (Dunn, 1965) and Frostigs (1966) test for spatial orientation, and the mothers were given the Adult Attachment Interview (George, Kaplan, & Main, 1984). The mothers in the frequently reading dyads did not need to discipline their child to focus on the reading task as often as the mothers in the infrequently reading dyads did. Mothers whose attachment to their child was less secure spent less time reading to their child and had more troublesome episodes during the reading session than mothers whose attachment to their child was more secure. The security of the mother...

Attachment in mental health institutions: A critical review of assumptions, clinical implications, and research strategies

Attachment is relevant to institutionalized treatment and the therapeutic process in three identifiable ways: (1) patients bring their mental representations of previous and existing attachment relationships to the treatment; (2) attachment is relevant to the extent to which a therapeutic alliance is established and maintained, both in terms of the mental representations of attachment in the patient and in the therapist and how these influence interactive behaviour and expectations in each partner to the therapeutic work; (3) the outcome of the treatment may be related to attachment; for example, when institutional experiences have an enduring impact on attachment representations and the future attachment behaviour of the patient. However, this brief review of attachment concepts reveals that several theoretical, conceptual and empirical questions remain to be answered before evidence-based clinical attachment guidelines can be formulated concerning patient-staff relationships.

Agoraphobia and anxious-ambivalent attachment: an integrative review

Abstract Attachment theory proposes that internal working models of attechment, that is, mental representations of attachment relationships, are shaped in childhood experiences with primary caregivers. It is hypothesized that an anxious-ambivalent internal working model of attechment is a risk factor for the development of agoraphobia. Indirect support for this hypothesis was obtained from a meta-analysis of four studies on parental caregiving style and from a secondary analysis of six studies on childhood separation anxiety in adults agoraphobics and normal and clinical control subjects. However, anxious-ambivalent attachment does not seem to be specific to agoraphobia alone, but appears to play an etiological role in other mental disorders as well. Suggestions for future research are offered.

Infants' responsiveness, attachment, and indiscriminate friendliness after international adoption from institutions or foster care in China: application of Emotional Availability Scales to adoptive families.

In a short-term longitudinal design we investigated maternal sensitivity, child responsiveness, attachment, and indiscriminate friendliness in families with children internationally adopted from institutions or foster care in China. Ninety-two families with 50 postinstitutionalized and 42 formerly fostered girls, aged 11-16 months on arrival, were studied 2 and 6 months after adoption. Maternal sensitivity and child responsiveness were observed with the Emotional Availability Scales, attachment was assessed with the Strange Situation procedure, and mothers reported on childrens indiscriminate friendliness. The postinstitutionalized children showed less secure attachment, whereas the former foster children did not differ from the normative distribution of attachment security. However, at both assessments the two groups of adopted children showed more disorganized attachments compared to normative data. Adoptive mothers of postinstitutionalized and former foster children were equally sensitive and their sensitivity did not change over time. Postinstitutionalized and former foster children did not differ on indiscriminate friendliness, but children with more sensitive adoptive mothers showed less indiscriminate friendliness. The former foster children showed a larger increase in responsiveness over time than the postinstitutionalized children, suggesting that childrens responsiveness is more sensitive to change than attachment, and that preadoption foster care is more beneficial for the development of childrens responsiveness after adoptive placement than preadoption institutional care.

No association of the dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) and -521 C/T promoter polymorphisms with infant attachment disorganization

In a first molecular genetic study Lakatos and colleagues found an association between attachment disorganization and the dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) gene polymorphism, in particular in the presence of the -521 T allele in the promoter region of the DRD4 gene. Replication of their study in a sample of 132 infants did not confirm the role of the DRD4 7+ -allele and the -521C/T promoter gene in disorganized attachment. Although our sample was larger, and contained more children with CT or TT alleles, which enhanced the probability of finding the DRD4 and C/T interaction, the association was not found. Even when we combined our sample with the Lakatos sample, the interaction effect of the DRD4 and -521 C/T polymorphisms on disorganized attachment was absent.

Quality of center day care and attunement between parents and caregivers. Center day care in cross-national perspective.

In a sample of 43 Dutch infants and toddlers (mean age = 1.7 years), the quality of care at day-care centers was assessed and compared with similar quality ratings in other European and North American countries. It was hypothesized that formal characteristics of care settings and caregivers as well as attunement between caregivers and parents would be associated with quality of care. Quality of center care was assessed with the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (T. Harms & R. M. Clifford, 1980), the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale (T. Harms, D. Cryer, & R. M. Clifford, 1990), and the Caregiver Interaction Scale (J. Arnett, 1989). The childrens interactions with both their mothers and their fathers at home were rated with several sensitivity scales. Caregivers and parents also completed questionnaires about childrearing attitudes and attunement. The results showed that the quality of center care in the Netherlands was rather good compared with that of other European and North American countries. Better quality of center care was associated with older caregivers who had less professional education, fewer years of experience, and who worked fewer hours per week. Communication and attunement between caregivers and parents did not appear to be important for quality of care.

The importance of shared environment in infant-father attachment: A behavioral genetic study of the Attachment Q-Sort

In this first behavior genetic study on infant-father attachment, we estimated genetic and environmental influences on infant-father attachment behaviors and on temperamental dependency, both assessed with the Attachment Q-Sort (AQS; B. E. Vaughn & E. Waters, 1990; E. Waters, 1995). Mothers of mono- and dizygotic twins (N = 56 pairs) sorted the AQS with a focus on the infants behaviors in the presence of the father. Genetic modeling showed that attachment was largely explained by shared environmental (59%) and unique environmental (41%) factors. For dependency, genetic factors explained 66% of the variance, and unique environmental factors including measurement error explained 34%. Attachment to father appears to be, to a significant degree, a function of the environment that twins share.