Abstract
Displaying selective attachment behaviours is an important developmental milestone for children with severe or profound intellectual disabilities (SPID). In the current study, between-child differences in their selective emotional responses to comfort provided by parents versus strangers were observed. We explored links between these differences and parental sensitivity and motor competence. A home-based experimental observation was conducted in 38 parent-child dyads, exposing children to four naturalistic stressors and to comfort provided by either their parents or a stranger. Emotional behaviour (arousal and valence) was micro-coded and differentiation variables were constructed, reflecting the children’s level of differentiation between the parent and the stranger. Parental sensitivity was coded using the Emotional Availability Scales. Results showed that these children’s differentiated responses to comfort were related to children’s motor competencies (particularly their fine motor skills), but not to parental sensitivity. This study shows the need to go beyond sensitivity to understand individual differences in the most basal aspects of attachment for children with SPID.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 12476-12489 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Current Psychology |
| Volume | 42 |
| Issue number | 15 |
| Early online date | 4 Jan 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - May 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Flanders, Belgium) under grant 1174917N.
Funding Information:
We are grateful to all care organisations who helped us with participant recruitment and to all families who welcomed us in their homes and engaged in this study. This work was supported by the FWO Flanders (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek) under Grant 1174917 N. The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to privacy reasons but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Funding Information:
We are grateful to all care organisations who helped us with participant recruitment and to all families who welcomed us in their homes and engaged in this study. This work was supported by the FWO Flanders (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek) under Grant 1174917 N.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
Funding
This work was supported by Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Flanders, Belgium) under grant 1174917N. We are grateful to all care organisations who helped us with participant recruitment and to all families who welcomed us in their homes and engaged in this study. This work was supported by the FWO Flanders (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek) under Grant 1174917 N. The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to privacy reasons but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. We are grateful to all care organisations who helped us with participant recruitment and to all families who welcomed us in their homes and engaged in this study. This work was supported by the FWO Flanders (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek) under Grant 1174917 N.
Keywords
- Comfort
- Emotional behaviour
- Motor competence
- Parent-child attachment
- Parental sensitivity
- Severe or profound intellectual disability