Maternal adult attachment and mother-adolescent attachment: the chain mediating role of marital satisfaction and harsh parenting

This study explored the relationship between maternal adult attachment and mother-adolescent attachment based on the attachment theory and spillover hypothesis of family systems theory. A survey research was conducted on 992 mothers and adolescents using a convenience sampling method. A survey research was conducted on 992 Chinese mothers and adolescents using a convenience sampling method. The results indicated that (1) maternal adult attachment avoidance and anxiety were significantly negatively related to maternal marital satisfaction and mother-adolescent attachment, and significantly positively related to maternal harsh parenting; maternal adult attachment anxiety was a significant direct predictor of mother-adolescent attachment; (2) Maternal marital satisfaction and maternal harsh parenting mediated the significant effect between maternal adult attachment and mother-adolescent attachment, specifically pathways contained three: a separate mediating effect of maternal marital satisfaction, a separate mediating effect of maternal harsh parenting, and a chain mediating effect of maternal marital satisfaction and maternal harsh parenting. The findings suggest that maternal adult attachment, marital satisfaction, and harsh parenting behaviors can have significant effects on adolescents' mother-adolescent attachment.

Parents' attachment orientation, interviewers' support, and children's memory for a mildly distressing event

Parents' attachment orientations predict children's memory about distressing life events, such that parents who are less secure in close relationships tend to have children who are less accurate in their memory reports. This study examined whether socially supportive interviewing would reduce differences in children's memory performance associated with parents' attachment. Children (3 to 5 years, N = 63) and their primary caretakers took part in the Preschool Attachment Classification System (PACS), a moderately distressing event for children of preschool age that is based on the Strange Situation Procedure. Children's memory for the event was then tested shortly thereafter by either a supportive or a non-supportive interviewer. In the non-supportive condition, children whose parents scored higher on attachment avoidance provided lower proportions of correct free recall. However, the association was not significant for children in the supportive condition. In addition, higher parental attachment anxiety predicted lower proportions of correct free recall for children of highly avoidant parents, but not for children of parents lower in attachment avoidance. For direct questions, age differences in proportion correct and proportion incorrect favoured older children. Findings provide insight into interviewing techniques at time of memory retrieval that benefit children of insecure parents.

A focus on accuracy in misinformed mothers puts young children at risk for false memories

This research examined how mothers' goal orientation and exposure to misinformation can shape how mothers engage their children in conversation about past experiences and consequently affect the accuracy of children's memory reports. To investigate this question, 169 mothers were asked to talk with their preschool-age children (M_age = 55 months, SD = 6.15; 90 female) about an earlier nonshared event. Some mothers were instructed to focus on eliciting an accurate account, whereas others were told to talk naturally as in everyday life. Before this conversation, some mothers in each goal condition were exposed to misleading information about what their children experienced. Mothers focused on accuracy exhibited more bias in their conversations than those centered on talking naturally. When later interviewed, children with accuracy-focused mothers made more false reports and recalled less correct details than those with natural-focused mothers. These trends were found even when mothers were not misinformed. The implications of these results for children's eyewitness memory and suggestibility are discussed.

Role of Emotional Appraisal in Episodic Memory in a Sample of Argentinean Preschoolers

Emotional processing and episodic memory are closely related throughout childhood development. With respect to emotional episodic memory, available evidence shows that the consolidation of information is accompanied by an arousal that generates longer duration and persistence of the memory representations. In the case of early stages of development (i.e., first 5 years), it is less clear how these associations emerge and are modulated by individual and environmental factors. In this study, 116 4- to 5-years old Argentinean children from different socio-environmental contexts (i.e., favorable or unfavorable living conditions at home), performed a task of visual emotional memory in which they observed a set of 15 images with variable emotional valences (negative, neutral, and positive). The child’s task was to appraise each image using one of the following three possible valences: (a) drawings of faces with smiles (positive valence), (b) drawings of faces with tears and round mouth with edges down (negative valence), or (c) drawings of faces with horizontal mouth (neutral valence). Five years-old children exhibited greater accuracy appraisal. Individual differences in emotional accuracy appraisal allowed us to observe different performances in free recall of negative visual images. Accuracy appraisal did not vary between children with respect to gender, living conditions at home, or language ability. Seven to ten days after the emotional appraisal children were asked to tell the experimenter all the images they remembered (variables of interest: free recall of negative, positive, or neutral images). Results showed individual (age) differences. Specifically, 5-years-old children evoked more images than 4-years-old children. These findings contribute to the understanding of emotional memory in early developmental stages and raise the need to include emotional appraisal in the assessment of episodic memory.

Implicit Encouragement: Enhancing Youth Productivity when Recounting a Stressful Experience

In recent years, increasing efforts have been focused on testing strategies of improving victimized children's narrative productivity, given that, for many youth, finding out what has happened to them is crucial to intervening and promoting their well-being. Implicit encouragement strategies, such as back channeling by conversational partners, have shown some preliminary promise, but their precise effects on productivity and accuracy have not been adequately examined. In this study, 98 youth, ages 8-14, completed a laboratory-based stressful activity, and a week later, a surprise memory test regarding what happened in the lab activity. Interviewers varied their use of implicit encouragement. Open-ended recall questions asked youth about both factual details and detail about their feelings and thoughts during the laboratory activity. Implicit encouragement increased the amount of both types of details and had no effect on errors. In fact, few youth provided any incorrect information in their recall reports. Neither age nor stress was related to youth's productivity or accuracy, directly or in conjunction with implicit encouragement. Results highlight the value of interviewers using encouraging behaviors when questioning children and adolescents to elicit a range of information about prior stressful experiences.

The Relationship Between the Left-Cradling Bias and Attachment to Parents and Partner

Mothers usually cradle their infants to the left of their body midline, an asymmetry that seems to be a typically female lateral preference. This bias is deemed to be an evolutionary facilitator of communication between cradling and cradled individuals and is believed to be strongly related to hemispheric specialization for complex socio-affective behaviors. Thus, left cradling might facilitate affective interactions in females with typical brain organization, probably due to a right-hemisphere dominance for social attachment. In this study, we investigated cradling-side preferences in 288 young females as a function of their attachment styles to parents and partners. A left-cradling bias was more frequent in participants experiencing positive relationships with their mother and romantic partners. These findings indicate that the left-cradling bias may be associated with high-quality social attachment behaviors in females and, therefore, can be considered as a natural index of socio-emotional attunement between the cradling and cradled individuals.

Attachment, household chaos, and children's health

INTRODUCTION

Despite growing interest in the links between sociocontextual factors and children's behavioral functioning, few studies have investigated how such factors, in combination, relate to health outcomes or vary across mental and physical well-being. We evaluated the direct and interactive associations of parental attachment and household chaos with preschool-age children's mental and physical health.

METHOD

Ninety-four parents completed questionnaires about their attachment styles, disorganization and confusion in the home, and their children's health functioning.

RESULTS

Attachment avoidance and anxiety in parents predicted poorer mental health in children, particularly in highly chaotic homes. Moreover, parental attachment anxiety, but not avoidance, predicted poorer reported physical health in children and, in conjunction with chaotic homes, more hospitalizations.

DISCUSSION

The results help illuminate how multiple domains in children's immediate environment jointly influence their physical and mental health and how these influences may vary across domains of functioning. Findings have implications for targeting interventions to have impact across facets of children's health. (PsycINFO Database Record

Parental Attachment and Children's Memory for Attachment-Relevant Stories

Despite evidence that parents' attachment is associated with children's memory, less is known about the mechanisms underlying this association or the contexts in which the association is most meaningful. The present study examined whether parents' attachment predicted children's memory for stories about attachment-related topics, whether the cohesiveness of children's stories mediated the association between attachment and memory, and whether the association varied by interview support at retrieval. Five- to 6-year-olds completed attachment-relevant stories while parents provided information about their romantic attachment. Children's stories were coded for cohesiveness. A week later, children's memory for their stories was tested by either a supportive or non-supportive interviewer. When the interview was non-supportive, greater parental avoidance was associated with poorer memory, whereas when the interview was supportive, greater parental avoidance was associated with fewer errors. Findings provide insight into the context under which parents' attachment is most influential in shaping children's memory.

Maternal attachment is differentially associated with mother-child reminiscing among maltreating and nonmaltreating families

In the current investigation, we examined associations between maternal attachment and the way that mothers and children discuss past emotional experiences (i.e., reminiscing) among 146 maltreating and 73 nonmaltreating mothers and their 3- to 6-year-old children. Recent studies demonstrate that maltreating mothers engage in less elaborative reminiscing compared with nonmaltreating mothers. To further explicate the nature of reminiscing among maltreating families, we examined maternal and child contributions to reminiscing, their interrelations, and associations with maternal attachment among dyads from maltreating and nonmaltreating families. Maternal attachment is theoretically and empirically associated with mother-child reminiscing, and an insecure maternal attachment style was hypothesized to exacerbate poor elaborative reminiscing among maltreating families. Mothers and children reminisced about four emotional experiences. Maternal attachment was measured with the Experience in Close Relationships-Revised questionnaire. Mothers and children from maltreating families engaged in less elaborative and emotion-rich reminiscing compared with nonmaltreating dyads. Maternal attachment anxiety was negatively associated with maternal elaborative reminiscing, but only among nonmaltreating mothers. Mother-child reminiscing among dyads with nonmaltreating and low attachment anxiety mothers was highly collaborative; whereas reminiscing among dyads with maltreating and high attachment anxiety mothers was less reciprocal. Our findings largely support communicative perspectives of attachment theory and also indicate that maternal attachment is differentially associated with mother-child reminiscing among maltreating and nonmaltreating families.

Links between an Owner's Adult Attachment Style and the Support-Seeking Behavior of Their Dog

The aim of this study was to investigate if an owner's adult attachment style (AAS) influences how their dog interacts and obtains support from them during challenging events. A person's AAS describes how they perceive their relationship to other people, but it may also reflect their caregiving behavior, and so their behavior toward the dog. We measured the AAS of 51 female Golden retriever owners, using the Adult Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ), and observed the reactions of the dog-owner dyads in response to different challenging situations [visual surprise, auditory stressor and social stressors like a person approaching dressed as ghost or in coat, hat and sunglasses]. In addition, the dog was left alone in a novel environment for 3 min. Interactions between the dog and owner were observed both before and after separation. Spearman rank correlation tests were made (between owner AAS and dog behavior) and where correlations were found, Mann-Whitney U-tests were made on the dogs' behavioral response between high and low scoring groups of owners of the different subscales of the ASQ. The more secure the owner (ASQ subscale 'Confidence'), the longer the dog was oriented to the two sudden stressors (the visual and auditory stressor). The more anxious the owner (ASQ subscale 'Attachment anxiety'), the longer the dog oriented toward the owner during the approach of the strange-looking person and the dog showed less lip licking during separation from the owner. The more avoidant the owner (ASQ subscale 'Avoidant attachment'), the longer the dog oriented toward the owner during the visual stressor, the less it was located behind the owner during the auditory stressor and the less it was oriented toward the auditory stressor. These links between owner attachment style and dog behavior imply that dogs may develop different strategies to handle challenging situations, based on the type of support they get from their owner.

How children remember the Strange Situation: The role of attachment

This study tested predictions from Bowlby's attachment theory about children's memory and suggestibility. Young children (3-5years old, N=88; 76% Caucasians) and their parents took part in the Strange Situation Procedure, a moderately distressing event and "gold standard" for assessing children's attachment quality. The children were then interviewed about what occurred during the event. Children's age and attachment security scores positively predicted correct information in free recall and accuracy in answering specific questions. For children with higher (vs. lower) attachment security scores, greater distress observed during the Strange Situation Procedure predicted increased resistance to misleading suggestions. In addition, for children who displayed relatively low distress during the Strange Situation Procedure, significant age differences in memory and suggestibility emerged as expected. However, for children who displayed greater distress during the Strange Situation Procedure, younger and older children's memory performances were equivalent. Findings suggest that attachment theory provides an important framework for understanding facets of memory development with respect to attachment-related information and that distress may alter assumed age patterns in memory development.

Attachment security and narrative elaboration

A key means of getting to know someone is through the sharing of personal experience narratives, an ability that shows considerable individual variation. Past research has documented a relationship between narration in conversations between children and their mothers and attachment security. However, children's narrative contributions are often embedded in an ongoing conversation which may be structured differently by mothers who also have assessed the extent to which their children use them as a secure base. In the present project, these two measurements were independent. Children's narration to an attentive, but non-scaffolding, stranger was investigated to see whether that, too, would correlate with security as assessed by mothers. Participants were 32 4-year-old children and their mothers. The security of children's attachment to their mother was assessed using the revised parent-reported 90-item Q-Sort and correlated with two measures of narration. One was simple length in words of the three longest narratives told to a friendly stranger, and the other was a composite formed from specific scored narrative variables. Both narrative measures were significantly correlated with attachment security, even after partialling out the effects of gender, age, and receptive vocabulary.These results suggest that securely-attached children have internalized the inclination to disclose themselves by means of relating narratives of some length and have begun to generalize this to adults outside their family.

When Parents Know Little about What Happened: Parent-guided Conversations, Stress, and Young Children's Eyewitness Memory

This study examined how 4- to 7-year-olds' memories for a stressor were influenced by conversations with a parent who had little knowledge of the target event, and the stress children experienced before, during, and after the event. Children (N = 43) watched a mildly stressful video before talking about it with a parent. Parents were asked to focus on either the children's feelings or the content of the video itself. A researcher interviewed the children about their memory following the conversation. Behavioral and physiological measures of children's stress were collected at multiple stages. Children recalled more inaccurate information with the parent than with the interviewer. Younger age and parent insecure attachment were associated with poorer memory. Manipulation of parents' emotion orientation did not predict memory, but individual differences in the talk did, although in different ways from what would be expected from research on conversations about shared events. Less stress (according to self-reported happiness and observed negative affect) before and after, but not during, the stressor was linked with better memory. Implications for children's memory in legal settings are discussed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Developmental Differences across Middle Childhood in Memory and Suggestibility for Negative and Positive Events

In the present study, we investigated age differences in children's eyewitness memory and suggestibility for negative and positive events that children often experience during middle childhood. We first examined 216 ratings by children aged 8-12 years of the frequency and intensity of personal negative and positive experiences (Study 1). Based on those ratings, videotapes depicting the most frequent and intense negative (an accident) and positive (a family excursion) events were developed. A new sample of 227 children aged 8-12 years was tested for recognition memory of the videotapes using the three-stage post-event misinformation procedure (Study 2). Compared with 8- to 9-year-olds, 10- to 12-year-olds exhibited less memory malleability and less compliance with false information. Age improvements in recognition accuracy were also evident for children who watched the negative event, but not for those who watched the positive event. Compliance predicted misinformation effects, particularly in regard to peripheral details. Thus, using ecologically representative emotional events, age differences in suggestibility and memory accuracy emerged, especially for negative events.Theoretical and forensic implications concerning children's eyewitness memory and suggestibility are discussed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Stress and emotional valence effects on children's versus adolescents' true and false memory

Despite considerable interest in understanding how stress influences memory accuracy and errors, particularly in children, methodological limitations have made it difficult to examine the effects of stress independent of the effects of the emotional valence of to-be-remembered information in developmental populations. In this study, we manipulated stress levels in 7-8- and 12-14-year-olds and then exposed them to negative, neutral, and positive word lists. Shortly afterward, we tested their recognition memory for the words and false memory for non-presented but related words. Adolescents in the high-stress condition were more accurate than those in the low-stress condition, while children's accuracy did not differ across stress conditions. Also, among adolescents, accuracy and errors were higher for the negative than positive words, while in children, word valence was unrelated to accuracy. Finally, increases in children's and adolescents' cortisol responses, especially in the high-stress condition, were related to greater accuracy but not false memories and only for positive emotional words. Findings suggest that stress at encoding, as well as the emotional content of to-be-remembered information, may influence memory in different ways across development, highlighting the need for greater complexity in existing models of true and false memory formation.

Young children's ability to use two-dimensional and three-dimensional symbols to show placements of body touches and hidden objects

In two experiments, we investigated 3- to 5-year-old children's ability to use dolls and human figure drawings as symbols to map body touches. In Experiment 1, stickers were placed on different locations of children's bodies, and the children were asked to indicate the locations of the stickers using three different symbols: a doll, a human figure drawing, and the adult researcher. Performance on the tasks increased with age, but many 5-year-olds did not attain perfect performance. Surprisingly, younger children made more errors on the two-dimensional (2D) human figure drawing task compared with the three-dimensional (3D) doll and adult tasks. In Experiment 2, we compared children's ability to use 3D and 2D symbols to indicate body touch as well as to guide their search for a hidden object. We replicated the findings of Experiment 1 for the body touch task; for younger children, 3D symbols were easier to use than 2D symbols. However, the reverse pattern was found for the object locations task, with children showing superior performance using 2D drawings over 3D models. Although children showed developmental improvements in using dolls and drawings to show where they were touched, less than two thirds of the 5-year-olds performed perfectly on the touch tasks. Both developmental and forensic implications of these results are discussed.

Parents' self-reported attachment styles: a review of links with parenting behaviors, emotions, and cognitions

For decades, attachment scholars have been investigating how parents' adult attachment orientations relate to the ways in which they parent. Traditionally, this research has been conducted by developmental and clinical psychologists who typically employ the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) to measure adult attachment. However, dating back to the mid-1990s, social and personality psychologists have been investigating how self-reported adult attachment styles relate to various facets of parenting. The literature on self-reported attachment and parenting has received less attention than AAI research on the same topic and, to date, there is no comprehensive review of this literature. In this article, we review more than 60 studies of the links between self-reported attachment styles and parenting, integrate the findings to reach general conclusions, discuss unresolved questions, and suggest future directions. Finally, we discuss the potential benefits to the study of parenting of collaborations among researchers from the developmental and social attachment research traditions.

How common is "common knowledge" about child witnesses among legal professionals? Comparing interviewers, public defenders, and forensic psychologists with laypeople

The present study evaluates the knowledge of jury-eligible college students (n = 192), investigative interviewers (n = 44), forensic psychologists (n = 39), and public defenders (n = 137) in regard to the research on interviewing children. These groups' knowledge was compared with the scientific research on the impact of interview techniques and practices on the accuracy of child witnesses. Jury-eligible students were the least knowledgeable, but their accuracy varied widely across items. Both interviewers and public defenders performed better than jury-eligible students, but they lacked substantial knowledge about the research on interviewing children on certain topics (e.g., using anatomically detailed dolls); forensic psychologists were the most knowledgeable. These findings suggest that professionals in the legal system need substantial professional development regarding the research on interviewing strategies with child witnesses. They also highlight the need for experts to provide case-relevant information to juries who lack basic information about the validity and reliability of children's reports.

Child maltreatment, trauma-related psychopathology, and eyewitness memory in children and adolescents

Two experiments were conducted to examine eyewitness memory in children and adolescents (9- to 15-years-old) with and without known histories of maltreatment (e.g., physical abuse, exposure to domestic violence). In Experiment 1, participants (N = 35) viewed a positive film clip depicting a congenial interaction between family members. In Experiment 2, participants (N = 31) watched a negative film clip in which a family argument was shown. Younger age and higher levels of trauma-related psychopathology significantly predicted commission errors to direct questions when the positive family interaction had been viewed, but not when the negative family interaction had been shown. Maltreatment history was not a significant unique predictor of memory performance for the positive or negative film clip. Implications for a scientific understanding of the effects of child maltreatment on memory are discussed.

Parental attachment style: examination of links with parent secure base provision and adolescent secure base use

The secure base construct represents one of attachment theory's most important contributions to our understanding of parent-child relationships and child development. The present study represents the first examination of how parents' self-reported attachment styles relate to parental secure base provision and adolescent (mean age = 16.6 years, SE = .59) secure base use during an observed parent-adolescent interaction. Further, the present study is the first to examine how fathers', as well as mothers', attachment styles relate to observed behavior in a parent-child interaction. At the bivariate level, maternal avoidance, but not anxiety, was negatively associated with observed adolescent secure base use. In addition, path analysis revealed that maternal avoidance was indirectly related to less adolescent secure base use through mothers' self-reported hostile behavior toward their adolescents and through adolescents' less positive perceptions of their mothers. Further, paternal anxiety, but not avoidance, was indirectly related to less adolescent secure base use through fathers' self-reported hostile behavior toward their adolescents. No significant findings emerged in relation to parental secure base provision. We discuss these results in the context of attachment theory and suggest directions for future research.

Maternal Attachment Style and Responses to Adolescents' Negative Emotions: The Mediating Role of Maternal Emotion Regulation

OBJECTIVE

Previous research has examined the developmental consequences, particularly in early childhood, of parents' supportive and unsupportive responses to children's negative emotions. Much less is known about factors that explain why parents respond in ways that may support or undermine their children's emotions, and even less is known about how these parenting processes unfold with adolescents. We examined the associations between mothers' attachment styles and their distress, harsh, and supportive responses to their adolescents' negative emotions two years later and whether these links were mediated by maternal emotion regulation difficulties.

DESIGN

Mothers in a longitudinal study (n = 230) reported on their attachment style, difficulties regulating their emotions, and their hypothetical responses to their adolescents' negative emotions, respectively, at consecutive laboratory visits one year apart.

RESULTS

Mothers who reported greater attachment-related avoidance and anxiety reported having greater difficulties with emotion regulation one year later. Emotion dysregulation, in turn, predicted more distressed, harsher, and less supportive maternal responses to adolescents' negative emotions the following year. In addition, greater avoidance directly predicted harsher maternal responses two years later.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings extend previous research by identifying maternal attachment style as a predictor of responses to adolescent distress and by documenting the underlying role of emotion dysregulation in the link between adult attachment style and parenting.

Perceived parental reactions to adolescent distress: development and validation of a brief measure

Although adolescence is a time of individuation with increased reliance on peers, research indicates that, despite a deliberate distancing from parents, adolescents continue to seek the support and console of parental attachment figures in times of distress. The Perceived Parental Reactions to Adolescent Distress (PRAD) is a brief self-report measure developed to examine adolescents' perception of parental response under conditions of distress as measured by four conceptually and empirically distinct parental reactions to distress: Comfort, Self-Focus, Avoidance and Harshness. Across two studies involving a total of 738 high school students, we developed the PRAD and substantiated its robust psychometric properties, including evidence for reliability as well as internal and criterion validity. Sources of individual differences in the test-scores were also explored. Empirical as well as practical importance of assessing parental reactions to adolescent distress is discussed with regard to both the attachment and adolescent development literature.

Children's memories of removal: a test of attachment theory

We report a study of parents' attachment orientations and children's autobiographical memory for an experience that according to Bowlby's (1982) attachment theory should be particularly threatening-children's forced separation from their parents. It was hypothesized that individual differences in parents' attachment orientations would be associated with children's distress and memory for this highly traumatic event. Children (n = 28) were observed during forced removal from home or school by Child Protective Services due to allegations of child maltreatment. Children's memory for the removal was tested 1 week later, and biological parents (n = 28) completed an adult attachment measure. Parental attachment anxiety significantly predicted children's distress during less stressful phases of the removal, R(2) = .25, and parents' attachment-related avoidance predicted fewer correct memory reports from the children (i.e., fewer hits to open-ended questions, R(2) = .16, and fewer hits to direct questions, R(2) = .27). The findings indicate that attachment theory provides important guidance for understanding children's autobiographical memory for traumatic events.

SUPPORTING CHILDREN IN U.S. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS: Descriptive and Attitudinal Data From a National Survey of Victim/Witness Assistants

We conducted a national survey of 786 victim/witness assistants (VWAs) to provide descriptive and attitudinal information about support person use in U.S. legal proceedings involving children. VWAs (N = 414) from 46 states returned completed surveys (response rate = 53%). Prosecutor-based VWAs or parents/guardians most frequently served as support persons. One support person was almost always or often used with child victims and/or witnesses of all ages. Support persons were extremely common in cases involving child sexual abuse, physical abuse, neglect, and adult domestic violence. Overall, support persons provided more informational than emotional support. The most common informational support was to provide referrals to community resources, conduct courtroom visit/orientation, and disseminate relevant procedural information. The most common emotional support was to accompany the child to trial. Support persons rarely or never questioned children directly during investigative interviews or in court. Respondents believed support persons decrease children's stress and increase accuracy and credibility; however, this effect varied as a function of who provided support, child age, case type, and type of emotional or informational support. Respondents believed that support person presence at trial probably does not prejudice jurors against defendants. These survey data provide a benchmark for legal professionals and a foundation for future social scientific research examining the effects of support person use on children.

Children's and adults' memory for emotional pictures: examining age-related patterns using the Developmental Affective Photo System

Two studies were conducted to examine theoretical questions about children's and adults' memory for emotional visual stimuli. In Study 1, 7- to 9-year-olds and adults (N=172) participated in the initial creation of the Developmental Affective Photo System (DAPS). Ratings of emotional valence, arousal, and complexity were obtained. In Study 2, DAPS pictures were presented to 20 8- to 12-year-olds and 30 adults, followed by a recognition memory test. Children and adults recognized aversive images better than neutral images. Moreover, children and adults recognized high and moderate arousal images more accurately than low arousal images. Adults' memory for neutral images exceeded that of children, but there were no developmental differences in memory for aversive pictures. Theoretical and methodological implications are discussed.

'I was just screeching!': comparing child and parent derived measures of distress

Two studies explored relationships between children's (2-13 years old) descriptions of how much they had cried and two other ways of assessing children's distress during injuries and subsequent hospital treatment, one parent-generated and the other child-generated. In the first study, 201 2- to 13-year-old children's descriptions of crying were compared with parental ratings of child distress, and in the second, these two measures plus a Faces Pain Scale were compared for 71 2- to 6-year-olds. Children's self-descriptions of crying were highly similar to parental ratings at all ages, but the Faces Pain Scale had less similarity to other measures, especially for younger preschoolers. Findings suggest that children's self-descriptions of emotional reactions may be a useful tool for assessing children's distress for real-world events with no adult witnesses.

Links between attachment and social information processing: examination of intergenerational processes

This chapter describes theory and research on intergenerational connections between parents' attachment and children's social information processing, as well as between parents' social information processing and children's attachment. The chapter begins with a discussion of attachment theorists' early insights into the role that social information processing plays in attachment processes. Next, current theory about the mechanisms through which cross-generational links between attachment and social information processing might emerge is presented. The central proposition is that the quality of attachment and/or the social information processing of the parent contributes to the quality of attachment and/or social information processing in the child, and these links emerge through mediating processes related to social learning, open communication, gate-keeping, emotion regulation, and joint attention. A comprehensive review of the literature is then presented. The chapter ends with the presentation of a current theoretical perspective and suggestions for future empirical and clinical endeavors.

Children's memories for events relating to treatment for eye cancer: Influence of age at loss of eye

Treatment for retinoblastoma frequently involves removal of at least one eye in the first 5 years. Variation in age of treatment leads to the assumption that children's later verbal accessibility of early traumatic memories may vary, with some children having less opportunity to make sense of their condition. Video recordings were made of 17 children who had undergone enucleation either before 24 months (n = 8) or after 24 months (n = 9) involved in "hospital play'' using props designed to elicit talk about "eyes." The hypothesis that a larger number of verbalizations about medical procedures would occur in children enucleated after 24 months than before 24 months was supported. Children enucleated after 24 months engaged in significantly more talk about enucleation and/or examination under anesthetic whereas none of the children enucleated in infancy talked about these medical events. The outcome supports the view that there is a transition around 24 months in the extent to which children can have verbal access to previous traumatic memories. The design of interventions needs to take into account that children enucleated in infancy have less opportunity for later verbal access to early memories of traumatic events than those treated later, leading to possible misconceptions about their own condition.

Exploring the effects of age and delay on children's person identifications: verbal descriptions, lineup performance, and the influence of wildcards

We explored the effects of age and retention interval on several measures of children's person identification ability: verbal descriptions, lineup performance, and the success of a 'wildcard'--a photo of a silhouetted figure with a large question mark superimposed--in reducing children's tendency to choose from target-absent lineups. Children aged 5-7 years (N= 101) and 8-11 years (N= 109) were briefly exposed to an experimental confederate during a staged event. Either 1-2 days or 2 weeks later, children described the confederate and were then presented with either a target-present or -absent lineup. Within each group, approximately half of the children were presented with a wildcard and half were not. Target-present lineup performance improved as age increased. Compared to control children, children in the wildcard condition were more likely to correctly reject the target-absent lineup, and less likely to identify the innocent suspect. The wildcard did not influence children's target-present lineup accuracy, nor did delay exert an influence on any of our measures of lineup performance. These findings extend our knowledge of children's person identifications, as well as providing further support for the use of wildcards in photographic lineups.

Autobiographical memory development from an attachment perspective: the special role of negative events

The authors propose a novel model of autobiographical memory development that features the fundamental role of attachment orientations and negative life events. In the model, it is proposed that early autobiographical memory derives in part from the need to express and remember negative experiences, a need that has adaptive value, and that attachment orientations create individual differences in children's recollections of negative experiences. Specifically, the role of attachment in the processing of negative information is discussed in regard to the mnemonic stages of encoding, storage, and retrieval. This model sheds light on several areas of contradictory data in the memory development literature, such as concerning earliest memories and children's and adults' memory/suggestibility for stressful events.

Extended evaluations in cases of child sexual abuse: how many sessions are sufficient?

This article provides new findings from a national study involving 18 forensic interview sites of 137 children who were randomly assigned to a four or eight session extended evaluation. Cases assigned to the eight session protocol were significantly more likely to be classified "credible disclosure" of sexual abuse (56.6%) than cases assigned to the four session protocol (29.5%) and significantly less likely to be classified "credible nondisclosure" of sexual abuse (9.2%) than cases in the four session protocol (24.6%). When four versus eight sessions, demographic variables, and case characteristics were entered into a regression, variables that predicted likelihood of sexual abuse were eight session protocol, older victim age, and caretaker belief the child had been sexually abused. When new disclosures were examined by session in the eight session protocol, 95% of new disclosures occurred by the sixth session.

The use of anatomical dolls as a demonstration aid in child sexual abuse interviews: a study of forensic interviewers' perceptions

Given that most cases of child sexual abuse lack external corroborating evidence, children's verbal accounts of their experiences are of paramount importance to investigators. Forensic interviewers are charged with interviewing child victims and oftentimes use anatomical dolls. Yet, research on dolls has not caught up to practice in the field. Using a multimethod approach, this study presents new evidence on the function and value of using anatomical dolls as a demonstration aid. With a standardized protocol, forensic interviewers from an urban Midwestern Children's Advocacy Center evaluated the purpose and value of anatomical dolls in a forensic setting. Relationships between child characteristics and interviewer-perceived value were examined using descriptive, bivariate findings and case examples. Using a large and diverse sample of children, the study found that forensic interviewers perceived children as able and willing to use dolls for purposes of clarification, consistency, distancing, and communication. Results are discussed in the context of real-world applications and best practices and provide an evidence-based foundation for future research.

Interviewing children in custody cases: implications of research and policy for practice

Research on child interviewing has burgeoned over the past 25 years as expectations about children's agency, competence, and participation in society have changed. This article identifies recent trends in research, policy, and theory with implications for the practice of interviewing children in cases of contested divorce and for the weight to be given the information children provide. A number of fields of relevant research are identified, including studies of families who have participated in the family law system, studies of child witnesses in the field, experimental studies of the effects of interview techniques on children's memory and suggestibility, and ethnographic methods that elicit children's views of their own experiences. Finally, a set of 10 principles for practice are delineated based on the best available science.