A Systematic Review of Representational and Behavioral Measures of Parent-Child Attachment Available for Middle Childhood

Abstract

A variety of parent-child attachment measures, representing a range of conceptual approaches, have been adapted for use in middle childhood. A recent surge in studies using the new methods makes a comprehensive review of these measures timely. This systematic review of 67 studies covers representational and behavioral measures of parent-child attachment used with children 9-12 years old. This paper aims to evaluate parent-child attachment measurements with an emphasis on understanding their theoretical bases in addition to considering the available validity evidence. Findings identify several independently well-validated representational measures, and they highlight a continued need to investigate direct comparisons of the measures, as very little research has considered how the measures relate to each other, both conceptually and empirically. Behavioral measures of attachment in middle childhood, which are relatively new, are identified as potentially important in developing a better understanding of attachment measurement in this age group.

A Road Map for Navigating Next Steps in the Study of Attachment in Middle Childhood

“…The field of study of attachment in middle childhood owes much to Kathy Kerns (e.g., Kerns & Richardson, 2005), as this period of the human developmental lifespan was the last to be investigated from an attachment perspective, after infancy, adulthood, adolescence, and the older/oldest years of the lifespan. This paper by Gastelle and Kerns (2022) underscores how far the field has come in the last 20 years, with a large set of useful suggestions, some of which have been elaborated on in this commentary, that may profitably guide further research and meaningful clinical work.…”

“…Ainsworth et al (1978) showed that observations of maternal sensitivity in the home over the first year of life predicted infant-mother attachment behavior at 1 year of age. And much longitudinal research has shown how infant-mother, and though studied less frequently infant-father attachment, have been linked forward in time predictively to a wide range of socioemotional outcomes across childhood and into Human Development 2022;66:30-33 DOI: 10.1159/000521528 adolescence, as Gastelle and Kerns (2022) review early in their paper. Yet, in their narrative review of 67 papers studying attachment in middle childhood, and diverse measures of attachment representations, behaviors, and questionnaire responses, predictive validity is not mentioned.…”

“…And it appears that only one of the methods reviewed, that is, the Friends and Family Interview (FFI) has been shown to be predicted by infant-mother and infant-father attachment as well as maternal and paternal AAIs for 11-year-old boys, but only infant-mother attachment and maternal AAIs for 11-year-old girls in the Steele and Steele (2005) chapter introducing the FFI. This is not a critique of Gastelle and Kerns (2022), but one that applies to the field of attachment research in middle childhood: longitudinal research is expensive and demanding to undertake, especially when mobility typifies the families being studied, but longitudinal research is the best way to study the core hypotheses arising from attachment theory, that is, that early relationships to primary attachment figures foreshadow later developmental outcomes, including attachment in middle childhood. This continuity is likely to be most evident in stable family contexts typical in community samples.…”

“…Three topics are addressed in this commentary. First, while Gastelle and Kerns (2022) apply the relevant psychometric criteria of convergent, construct, and discriminant validity, this comment will focus on the need for future research to also address predictive validity, as studies linking infancy and early childhood to attachment in middle childhood appear to have been the focus in only 3 of the 67 papers reviewed by Gastelle andKerns (2022) (i.e., Miller et al, 2019;O'Connor et al, 2019;Steele & Steele, 2005). Furthermore, only one study has looked prospectively at how attachment in middle childhood may foreshadow later patterns of attachment in adolescence (Vaughn et al, 2016), and one study has considered young adult romantic relationships as related to prior peer-related attachment in middle childhood (Grossman et al, 2005).…”

Parent–Child Attachment and Dynamic Emotion Regulation: A Systematic Review

“…In comparison, representational measures of attachment evaluate children's reflections on attachment relationship experiences and secure base script mental representations. Representational measures of attachment include word prompts, story stem completion tasks, and autobiographical interviews or narrative measures (Gastelle & Kerns, 2022). For instance, the Friends and Family Interview (Steele & Steele, 2005) and Child Attachment Interview (Target et al, 2003) are autobiographical interview measures for children, and the Adult Attachment Interview (Main et al, 1985) is an autobiographical interview measure for adolescents and emerging adults.…”