VI. INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION OF SECURE BASE SCRIPT KNOWLEDGE: THE ROLE OF MATERNAL CO-CONSTRUCTION SKILLS

A Learning Theory Approach to Attachment Theory: Exploring Clinical Applications

Although clinicians typically acknowledge the importance of insecure attachment as one factor that can contribute to children's psychopathology, translating attachment theory into clinical practice has proved a challenge. By specifying some of the mechanisms through which the child's attachment develops and changes, learning theory can enhance attachment based approaches to therapy. Specifically, interventions building on operant (parent management training) and classical (exposure therapy) learning can be used to stimulate new learning that increases the child's security and confidence in the parent's availability and responsiveness. To explore the clinical application and utility of a Learning Theory of Attachment (LTA), we focus on two attachment-focused interventions: Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD) and Middle Childhood Attachment-based Family Therapy (MCAT). VIPP-SD is an evidence-based parent management training designed to promote sensitive parenting and secure attachment in early childhood. MCAT is a recently developed intervention that uses exposure to stimulate secure attachment in middle childhood. LTA sheds light on the mechanisms set in train by VIPP-SD and MCAT facilitating the induction of professionals in clinical applications.

Taxometric Analysis of Secure Base Script Knowledge in Middle Childhood Reveals Categorical Latent Structure

Taxometric investigation of scripted attachment representations in lateadolescence and adulthood suggests that variations in secure base script knowledge consist of differences in degree (dimensional latent structure) rather than differences in kind (categorical latent structure). However, the latent structure of secure base script knowledge in younger cohorts has gone unexplored. This study presents a downward extension of prior taxometric work using the middle childhood version of the Attachment Script Assessment in a cross-sectional sample of 639 normative-risk children (age 8 to 13 years; M = 10.77, SD = 1.06). Results suggest that secure base script knowledge in middle childhood is categorically distributed. Taxometric curves revealed three distinct taxa, highlighting discontinuity in the latent structure of scripted attachment representations across development.

Commentary: the link between attachment and social competence in early childhood

The relationship between attachment and social competence in early childhood has been established by the broader literature, but has fallen short of providing specificity of developmental mechanisms bridging the two. This special issue proposes that secure base script knowledge built upon infant-caregiver experiences is the key link. The empirical articles provide support of this hypothesis across cultures sampled from four continents. All reproduce significant relations between children's secure base scripts and social competence, as well as other related social/cognitive variables. None of this would be possible if the authors had not developed new efficient scoring systems for assessing young children's script knowledge. They have not only provided a more sophisticated cognitive-based analysis of the relation between attachment and social competence, but new methodological tools to explore the relation in greater detail as well opening up the possibility of longitudinal studies and adapting the narrative techniques to assess peer-based scripts.