Child psychology

Attachment

A close emotional selective relationship between two persons characterised by mutual affection and a desire to maintain proximity

Bowlby/ attachment

• Adaptive: Attachment is beneficial for survival - if we have a good attachment with our parents they can provide us with things such as food, shelter, protection etc. So we have evolved attachment behaviours which make parents feed, care for, scare off predators etc

• Social releasers - Babies cry, coo etc to make parents stay proximate and care for their children. When you hear a baby cry, the natural instinct is to go over to them.

• Critical period - up to about 2.5 years and is where attachment needs to occur for a healthy normal human to emerge. Bowlby suggests that separation causes emotional and intellectual issues e.g., Affectionless psychopathy

• Monotropy: Usually an intense bond formed with one person, usually the mother, who the child will look to for care and attention rather than others. Bowlby does acknowledge that this can be the father if mother isn't present.

• Internal working model - your early relationship with your caregivers becomes a schema for future relationships. Your schema formed from your early attachments will lead to your expectations of how to be treated in future relationships. Continuity hypothesis - future relationships match early ones e.g., if your mother is sensitive as a care giver, this gets stored in your memory and becomes the basis for future relationships, so you will also be sensitive to your children.

Signs of attachment

• Seeking proximity

• Distress on separation

• Joy on reunion

• General orientation towards one another

Lorenz

• Geese separated

• Imprinted on Lorenz - natural tendency to attach

• Critical period - attachment must occur or never will

Harlow

• Baby monkeys given either cloth mother (comfort) or wire mother (food)

• They use cloth mother as secure base

• Later suggested monkeys raised without mother were socially maladjusted

Strengths of Bowlby/ attachment

• Lorenz's research on geese supports Bowlby's monotropic theory as the attachment process of imprinting was demonstrated to be an innate process with a critical period → means that it is a more credible explanation of the development and importance of early childhood attachments.

• Harlow- Showed deprivation (only having the wire mother) effects the monkey's exploration, socialisation and confidence → adds credibility to Bowlby's ideas that separation during the critical period has long-term effects.

• Bowlby - Results showed that 17 out of 44 juvenile thieves had experienced long term separation from their caregiver for more than a six month period, and 14/44 thieves were classified as 'affectionless psychopaths' whereas 0% of the control were classified as this) → Adds credibility to Bowlby's critical period aspect of his theory, where he suggests that separation can cause long term detrimental effects

• Useful for daycare/hospitals e.g. getting key workers who are trained to be sensitive to SR, increasing contact time with parents during hospital stays,

• Hazan & Shaver - Supports the IWM as they found that adult relationships do match childhood when measured via self-report → IWM is a credible component of the theory.

• Spitz - studied the effects of being in an institution and found that it led to the children being depressed, especially if deprived of the mother for three months or more → shows that when attachment isn’t formed during the critical period it leads to issues with socialisation, making the theory more valid

Weaknesses of Bowlby/ attachment

• It is hard to test evolutionary theories; evolutionary theories are post-hoc, meaning that we created the theory after the fact and so cannot go back in time to re-test it. For Bowlby's theory that attachment is beneficial for, we cannot go back in time to test this → Bowlby's theory might not be credible/valid as it cannot be directly tested to see if his claims about attachment are true.

• Fox- study in Kibbutz which found no negative effects of communal living and not having just one care giver to respond to them → Bowlby theory not credible because it conflicts with the idea of monotropy and there being a critical period

• Animal studies do not apply to humans because our behaviour, attachment styles etc might not be the same (e.g. Harlow, Lorenz etc)

• Robertson and Robertson suggests that it is not the separation that causes negative effects, rather the nature of the separation itself (e.g. if they were separated but had a mother substitute who provided good care, then they turn out fine)→ Bowlby may have been wrong and so the theory is less credible.

• Bowlby treated Deprivation effects and Privation effects similarly ignoring important differences (e.g. going to work and leaving your child is treated the same as leaving them alone in a cupboard for days at a time) → This means this aspect of his theory might not be valid, making his overall conclusions about the damage done by separation during the critical period less valid.

• Schaffer and Emerson - They found that 29% of 7 month old children have joint attachments → monotropy may not be as true as Bowlby suggests, reducing credibility.

• Socially sensitive - It blames the parent for their children's relationships in the future and their emotional regulation, → thus, also ignoring other factors, such as schooling & individual dif. which could make this theory reductionist

Aim of Ainsworth

In 1963 Ainsworth studied 26 families in Uganda observing their interactions, watching mother-child relationships. She also interviewed the mothers and gathered data about the mother’s sensitivity

Sample of Ainsworth

Children aged 12-18 months from 26 middle class families in the US

Ainsworth strange situation procedure

• A Structured observation in a laboratory/controlled situation is set up which looked like a play room (chairs for adults and toys for the child), tinted glass used as it can be covert

• Play sessions with middle class American families – 8 stages:

1. Mother and child enter the room

2. Mother and child are together in the room and whether child plays with toys is measured (to see if child uses mother as a Secure Base).

3. A stranger comes into the room and interacts - stranger anxiety measured

4. Mother leaves the room leaving the child and stranger together, separation anxiety is measured.

5. The mother returns according to the distress shown by the child, if the distress is high the mother returns quickly, and the stranger leaves the room. The mother consoles the child if needed.

6. The mother then leaves the child alone in the room

7. The stranger enters the room with the child alone and attempts to play with the child.

8. The mother returns and reunion behaviour is measured (does child go to her? Angry?).

Results of Ainsworth

• 70% secure - responsive parenting, use parents as secure base to explore, have stranger anxiety, have separation anxiety, easily comforted on reunion

• 20% avoidant - neglectful parenting, don’t use parents as secure base, no stranger anxiety, no separation anxiety, don’t need comfort

• 10% resistant - inconsistent parenting, clingy, lots of stranger anxiety, lots of separation anxiety, difficult to comfort and often lashes out

Conclusion of Ainsworth

There are different types of attachment which are shown by differences in behaviour (such as exploring a room/ being comforted by mother).

Strengths of Ainsworth

• Standardised procedure, eg mam and child in room with stranger so reliable → can repeat to see that attachment types seen/ behaviours are consistent

• Inter rater reliability as multiple observers watching the children’s behaviour → can check answers against each other to make sure we get consistent results about attachment

• Structured observation so higher controls over EVs eg familiarity with stranger/ strangers actions → more valid as we know the strangers actions don’t influence some children and not others

• Low in demand characteristics as one way mirror and babies who won’t be able to guess the purpose of the study → this means they’re not going to change their behaviour when reunited, making the results more valid

• Mothers gave consent

Weaknesses of Ainsworth

• All participants in the strange situation are from USA so ethnocentric and not generalisable → results about attachment types/ behaviours might not represent to different cultures (there might be something about American cultures which effects attachment types)

• All 12-18 months old → might not apply to other age ranges who might show attachment differently

• Gynocentric as only used mothers not other relationships so not generalisable → dads and children might end up with differences in attachment types so this study wouldn’t represent that

• Main & Solomon suggest a possibly a fourth attachment type, called ‘disorganised’ (in which the infant is fearful of the attachment figure but still wants closeness) → this wasn’t accounted for in the SS and therefore both the study and the theory may be considered as a reductionist view of attachment.

• Kagan found that innate temperamental characteristics which made infants ‘easy’ and ‘difficult’ had a serious impact on the quality of the mother-infant relationship and thus the attachment type → this lowers the credibility of the theory as it shows that the type of attachment formed is not due to parents

• Low in ecological validity because the situation of being left with stranger and reunions on 3 minute timescale is artificial → the results of attachment type behaviours might not apply to how the baby would respond in the real world

  • However, playroom and kids will get left with strangers at nursery etc so might apply to real world

• Children are not protected from harm - upsetting children

  • However, mother could shorten the time if they wanted

Deprivation

• Deprivation is a loss of a primary attachment figure.

• An attachment that has been formed is broken

• Can be short term or long term (ST and LT)

• If the deprivation is long-term the effects CAN be irreversible

Causes of short term deprivation

• Hospitals

• Divorce

• Daycare

• Work

Stages of short term deprivation - bowlby

• Protest: children showed great distress, calling and crying for the absent caregiver, and some appeared panic-stricken.

• Despair: children became calmer but apathetic as they showed little interest in anything. Rejects comfort from others. Uninterested in other activities. Display self-comforting behaviours such as thumb sucking and rocking.

• Detachment: children appeared to be coping with the separation as they showed more interest in their surroundings. However, the children were emotionally unresponsive. The children avoided forming new attachments and no interest was shown when the caregiver returned, but most children re-established the relationship

Evaluation of Bowlby

• Naturalistic observation in residential nurseries → results about effects of short term disruption in attachment is high in ecological validity which means it can be applied to real life

• Recorded and time sampling → more reliable

• Hospital in 1950s → lack temporal validity

Robertson and Robertson

Found that when children get good quality replacement care they didn’t go through protest, despair and detachment

Evaluation of Robertson and Robertson

• High in ecological validity

• Recorded and time sample

• High in depth and detail

• Lack temporal validity

• Unique cases

• Hard to repeat

Overcoming short term deprivation

• Keep in contact with separated parent

• Daycare key workers

• Good replacement and care

• Visiting in hospitals

• Reminders from homes - toys

• Keep routines

Long term deprivation

• Bowlby felt that children must have the constant presence of the mother/caregiver throughout the critical period (first two years).

• Any breaking of this bond may affect personality/intellectual/social/deprivation could result in affectionless psychopathy.

• The effect of deprivation is permanent and irreversible

• Deprivation can result in a poor internal working model as a future template for later relationships

Causes of long term deprivation

• Divorce

• Prison

• Death

Consequences of long term deprivation

• Aggressiveness

• Depression

• Delinquency

• Dependency anxiety

Maternal deprivation hypothesis

• Disruption to attachment process → inability to form relationships with others → lack of moral constraints on behaviour → leads to delinquency

Supporting evidence of deprivation

• Bowlby 44 thieves - 17/44 thieves had prolonged separation vs 2/44 controls, 14/44 thieves were affectionless psychopaths vs 0/44 controls

• Olsavsky found that children who had been maternally deprived had a similar response in the amygdala when seeing the mother or a stranger and were more indiscriminately friendly

• Goldfarb studied 15 children who had stayed in an institution up to the age of 3 before being fostered. He compared them to a group of children who had been fostered from 6 months of age and found that those fostered later were emotionally less secure and intellectually behind the other group → this shows that the longer the separation the more issues the children have

Conflicting evidence of deprivation

• Rutter found that it was the cause of the separation and not the separation itself that caused problems

• Robertson & Robertson found that given good quality care children need not go through PDD process and can recover fully from Deprivation

• Children raised differently in other cultures do not suffer these effects so it is difficult to apply the hypothesis globally (Fox- study in Kibbutz)

• Bowlby’s research has been misunderstood and used to blame parents for childhood neglect (social sensitivity and social control)

Overcoming long term deprivation

• Provide a continuous substitute figure

• Daycare provides caring figures for a child to allow attachments to be formed

• Reduce the time spent away from the attachment figure

• The less time spent in daycare, according to Belsky, the lessened the effects of deprivation on attachment

• If the deprivation is due to divorce, minimising conflict, according to Rutter reducing adverse effects of separation.

• Also maintaining regular contact with estranged partners will reduce separation effects/maintains attachment

• Keeping up with routines that they had at home to help ease transition

• Bringing comforting reminders from home for comfort and to ease transition

Privation

• Privation is a lack of an attachment figure

• Attachment is never formed

Genie (curtiss)

• Found at 13

• Genie’s privation was not reversible to an extent because she did not develop typical language use, eg she learnt some basic words but could not learn grammar beyond the capability of a toddler → suggests there is a critical stage for grammar to be learned which is irreversible

• Found aspects of her social behaviour/ physical development for her age were also not reversible

• Her privation was partly reversible because she developed some attachment to key figures

• However when she was moved into foster care she regressed, suggesting lack of reversibility

• Genie could walk however could not walk correctly the same as everyone else - this however could be due to physical issues from being strapped down

• Genie was said to have learning difficulties by her doctor from birth so the difficulties that she had may not be a result of privation - although this diagnosis was questioned

• Sleep spindle research suggested mental retardation from birth

Czech twins (koluchova)

• Twins locked in a cellar and beaten

• Found at the age of 7 that they were severely physically and mentally retarded. They hadn’t been taught to speak, and no knowledge of eating habits and were very frightened of people. Iq estimated to be in 40s.

• Fostered by a warm caring mother, by the age of 11 the twins speech was normal for their age and by 15 their emotional state and iq were normal

• Suggests privation was reversible as by the age of 20 both twins had secure relationships and had jobs

Bull dogs bank: Freud and Dann

• Concentration camp kids were totally devoted to each other. They did everything together and refused to be separated for any reason, suggesting they could form attachments

• Children were able to form attachments to staff members at the clinic they went to for rehabilitation, and all but one seemed to develop normal adult relationships

Rutter

• Romanian orphans raised in appalling institutional conditions

• Ones adopted before 6 months caught up in weight, height and cognitive ability

• Ones adopted after 6 months had difficulties forming attachments and social interactions, eg indiscriminate friendliness

• Prolonged effect if adopted after 6 months

Hodges and Tigard

• Found that children who has been in institutional care and then adopted were able to form attachments to their adoptive parents, though they had trouble forming relationships outside of the adoptive family, as well as their own siblings

• Teachers rated the ex-institutionalised group as more often quarrelsome, less often liked by other children and as bullying other children more than the comparison group

Overall of case studies

• Compared to the Czech twins, genie showed a poorer outcome despite good quality care possibly due to lack of sibling to attach to

• The Czech twins were able to show reversibility due to high quality of care by the individuals who cared for t(em

• The bulldogs bank children improved after they were found, though some had later emotional issues so reversibility was largely true

• The Czech twins/ bulldog banks case showed reversibility because they were found at an earlier age than genie

Evaluation of privation case studies

• Case studies may not apply to other individuals/ genies case was unique and you cannot generalise the results to the wider population so we cannot be certain of reversibility as all individuals are unique

• Genie was said to have learning difficulties by her doctor from birth so not a result of privation (although this was questioned) → findings about the effects of privation less valid if she already had this possible extraneous variable

• Sleep spindle research suggested mental retardation from birth so reversibility was not possible → this is an objective measure which suggests it might mot be an effect of privation

• Czech twins/ bulldog banks children also had a bond with one another (and the twins had a bond with their mother/ aunt) and therefore it might not really be a case of privation → this means we don’t know if the reversibility is valid because it could be deprivation rather than privation

• Freud and Dann’s study was a case study of unique children at u unique point in time (war) so the results may not be true of other children who have suffered privation

• The results of Tizard’s study may not be true today as at the time the institutions had a high staff turnover, and close relationships were discouraged, whereas now we know how important it is to form close relationships with children in institutional care → may lack temporal validity so results about the effects of privation cannot be applied to today’s cases of privation

• Hodges and Tigard had control group to compare to

• Rutter had a big sample

Cross cultural research

• Cross-cultural research is when we conduct the same procedure in more than one country to see how they compare

• Comparisons can be made from one culture to another

• This lets us see if behaviour is (universal, so probably due to nature) or environmental factors (nurture)

Reasons for completing cross cultural research

• Cross-cultural research gives us a better appreciation of the impact of culture on behaviour, such as different child rearing styles coming from different cultural practices

• Reduces ethnocentric bias in research as it is bringing in other cultural views it reduces one sided views of behaviour

• Can suggest more suitable tools to measure a behaviour, e.g. attachment in different cultures, as appropriate

• Conducting research in other countries ensures better generalisability of findings/theory

Strengths of cross cultural research

• CC research allows us to establish whether a particular childhood behaviour is due to biological/evolutionary or environmental factors → if it is found to be universal it is probably due to nature and if not, it is due to nurture, allowing us to know if any interventions need to be put in place for example

• Reduces ethnocentric bias in research/ bringing in other cultural views it reduces one sided views of behaviour → making the knowledge about attachment types more valid

• CC research shows shows us the differences between cultures for a specific trait that you are investigating → this can therefore suggest more suitable tools to measure a behaviour, e.g. attachment in different cultures, as appropriate

• Conducting research in other countries ensures better generalisability of findings/theory → we can better see that the results about attachment types is applicable to other countries/cultures around the world

Weaknesses of cross cultural research

• Research tools may not apply e.g. Strange situation too upsetting to children from another culture/designed for US children only therefore may not apply to other cultures → This is a weakness because it means it is lacking ecological validity/it is ethnocentric

• May have an imposed etic where we assume a behaviour is 'normal' → introducing bias and making the results about attachment types less valid

• May overlook cultural differences as we are not part of that culture (we don't fully understand)→ making our judgements about attachment less valid

• Subcultures may not be represented in sample because we are unaware of them. This is a weakness because it may make the sample less generalisable or applicable to what the effect of 'culture' is on attachment types

Cross cultural variations in attachment

• Takashahi - 0% avoidance attachment in Japan

• In Japanese families where the mother goes to work and has to leave the child attachment types are similar in % to Ainsworth’s study

• Sagi - kibbutz children who lived with their parents had attachment types similar to those found by Ainsworth

Aim of van ijzendoorn and kroonenberg (classic study)

To investigate any pattern in attachment types across 8 cultures

Sample of van ijzendoorn and kroonenberg

• 32 strange situation studies across 8 cultures

• All under 2, none with special educational needs, all mothers and babies

Procedure of van ijzendoorn and kroonenberg

• Meta analysis method using secondary data

• Cross cultural study comparing attachment behaviour

• 32 strange situation studies

• Strange situation monitors child’s behaviours as parent and stranger leaves, enters and tries to interact with child

• Compared results within culture and across culture

Results of van ijzendoorn and kroonenberg

• Secure attachments were the most common in every culture

• Uk has the highest secure attachment 75% and china the lowest 50%

• West Germany has the highest avoidance 35.3% and Japan lowest 5.2%

• Israel has highest resistance 28.8% and uk lowest 2.8%

• Difference within culture is 1.5x higher than between cultures

Conclusion of van ijzendoorn and kroonenberg

Culture does effect attachment type

Strengths of van ijzendoorn

• Secondary data (from his various attachment type studies from 8 countries) → allows for large amounts of data from numerous studies to be analysed to gain a better understanding of the trends occurring in attachment types

• Large sample of 1990 children → makes it more representative of a wider populations attachment types around the world

• Not ethnocentric as it looks at 8 different cultures including collectivist and individualistic were used → makes it more representative of worldwide effects of parenting on attachment

• Cross-cultural is useful as it lets us see whether behaviour is caused by nature or nurture → this can influence how we raise/ look after children

• Extraneous variables eliminated from the studies, eg age of children, special needs etc to make sure the results are comparable → makes it more valid about how parenting/ culture effects attachment

• All used the same standardised strange situation which makes it more replicable → we can repeat a similar study to see if the results about culture and attachment are still reliable

Weaknesses of van ijzendoorn

• Publication bias could be a problem because only certain studies about attachment types get published (eg those which were not significant were not published) → this damages the validity of the results as the meta-analysis doesn’t include all possible results, biasing the results

• Too much focus on the US (18), very few collectivist cultures were used → making it less representative of attachment types in other cultures

• Some like china and uk only had one study, so we don’t know if their results are really representative → results about attachment types and culture less valid

• Only looks at the relationship between mother and children → doesn’t apply to other relationships

• Main and Solomon

• Kagan

• Procedure is ethnocentric as it is only based on ainsworths strange situation → research suggests that it doesn’t work for Japanese children causing validity issues

Aim of Li

To see the effects on cognitive, language and pre-academic skills in children who received either high or low quality care at infant/ toddler level and pre-school level

Sample of Li

• A sample of 1364 families was recruited from ten sample sites around north America in 1991 from various hospitals at the birth of a child

• At the age of one month, the children and families were assessed using a variety of research methods, observations made, questionnaires and child assessment conducted in addition to information gathered on the family background as far as possible confounding variables

• Ethnicity, gender, birth order, child temperament, maternal attitudes on raising children, maternal age, maternal and paternal educational level, child’s health, maternal separation anxiety, maternal depression, maternal employment status and family income were taken at regular intervals. All babies were full term.

Procedure of Li

• Used secondary data from the NICHD study

• The quality of childcare was assessed using the observational record of the caregiving environment (ORCE) when the children were aged 6,15,24,36 and 54 months in their home and nursery, as well as other places

• A score of 3.0 was used to distinguish between low and high quality infant-toddler care and low and high quality care for the preschool period - scores of more than 3.0 indicated higher quality care

• At the end of the infant toddler period the Hayley mental development index was used to assess the children’s cognitive development

• At the end of the pre-school period the woodcock Johnson cognitive and achievement batteries and the preschool language scale (PLS) was used to measure language, problem solving, memory and intelligence

Results of Li

• High quality infant care causes higher cognitive scores at 24 months vs low quality care

• High quality infant care has a benefit on memory at 54 months but not cognitive abilities

• High quality pre-school improves scores in language, reading and memories at 54 months

• High quality infant care to low quality pre school = lost cognitive advantage except memory

Conclusions of Li

• High quality care during the first 24 months is important for memory development, but not as beneficial for academic skills development

• High quality preschool care prepared children for scholastic achievement, and children who were also exposed to high quality infant toddler care benefited most

• Early exposure to good quality care that was not maintained did not benefit the children, but maintained high quality care resulted in the greatest gains for children

Strengths of Li

• Large sample of 1364 families from 10 different sites → makes it more generalisable and so the results about the quality of daycare are representative of a wider population

• Triangulation of methods used were used, eg woodcock Johnson and PLS meaning they can support one another → concurrent validity because the findings from the different measures can back each other up about the impact of daycare

• Used families who had full term healthy new born children → development at birth did not affect the results and become a confounding variable

• Longitudinal data over the early period of their lives and across different daycare situations → this lets us see development and change over time and how daycare affects them

• Measured something that was naturally occurring, eg which daycare they went to → study more ethical as any harm they encounter from low quality daycare are not due to the researchers doing

Weaknesses of Li

• Lots of EVs still present, eg life events over the 54 months which might impact children (other than nursery) → less valid as these variables might impact on the child

• Only looked at daycare facilities in the US and so is ethnocentric → results about the effects of daycare may not apply anywhere else in the world, where they are ran differently

• Secondary data means that there may be possible EVs/ lack control so might not be operationalised in the right way → reduces the validity of the findings about daycares effects

Daycare

• Temporary care provided by someone other than the primary care giver

• Can consist of other family members looking after the child, sending the child to a child minder, Nannies or day nursery

• There are rules and regulations enforced by oftsed about how day care institutions should run, facilities, staff levels and training

• Child minder and nursery nurses have to be qualified

Campbell: good quality day care

• Low adult to child ratio (1:3) to ensure that each child gets plenty of attention and stimulation and substitute care

• Stable attachment figure - a key worker is a good way to achieve this, the worker should be responsive and warm to the child

• A small sized group - easier for children to mix in as there are fewer strangers

• Low staff turnover - staff are not frequently leaving, so this prevents feelings of insecurity when adults leave

• Mixed age groups - like in families - children are able to observe ‘modelled’ behaviours

• Well trained staff (at least level 2) who know how to care and provide stimulating environments for children → will help aid attachment formation and intellectual and emotional development

• A structured day - routines help the child to feel that their environment is predictable as this is part of feeling safe

Benefits of daycare

• Children socialise more → find it easier to make friends when they go to school

• Learn to share toys and interact with each other which helps them understand social rules

• Enchanters child’s cognitive development such as number games

• OFSTED rays day care providers in the uk, and part of that process is showing that they have a formal curriculum to help the child develop

Drawbacks of daycare

• May make children more aggresive

• Can affect attachment styles with children who spend more time in day care possibly developing insecure attachments

• May become more anxious avoidant, so they are not affected by the absence of their mother

Studies which say daycare is good

• Andersson - day care had a positive effect on the social development of a child in those who went before one, as they had more friends and were more outgoing at school compared to children who did not attend day care

• The EPPE project - children who attended day care before the age of 3 had better intellectual development → showing that day care can provide activities that help a child’s intellectual development

• Li - children in high quality day care improved their academic abilities, memory abilities and language abilities

• Sylva - children who started nursery before 3 years old will benefit intellectually

• Sylva - children became more sociable the longer they were at nursery, shown via the amount of aggressive behaviour towards one another decreasing

• Clarke-Stewart - children who attended nurseries could cope better in social situations, and were able to interact better with peers, compared with children previously looked after in family settings

Studies which say daycare is bad

• NICHD - daycare can lead to the children having behavioural problems, especially if the daycare was of low quality

• Vandell - extensive child care since infancy is associated with poorer academic and conduct report cases

Studies which say the number of hours affects results of daycare

• Belsky and Rovine - children who spent more than 20 hours in day care developed an insecure attachment to their mother → showing that daycare can have a negative effect on the development of a child

• Dilalla - children who spent more time in daycare were less cooperative

Studies which say that the effects of day care is different due to individual differences

• Kagan - could be the temperament of the child that affects the attachment they have with their mothers → being in daycare for long periods of time may not affect the development of a child

• Andersson - children who attended day care from an earlier age came from high income families, so it may be the socio-economic status of the family that affected the development of the children, not the day care

• Pennebaker - shy children get less benefits from daycare

• The EPPE - children from disadvantaged backgrounds get more benefits from daycare

Autism

Developmental disorder which impacts cognition and behaviours

Autism features

• Autism is classified as a developmental disorder

• 75% of those diagnosed Autistic are male.

• Autism is on a spectrum and is now known as ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). You can be low functioning (so need more support) through to high functioning (manage relatively well in day to day life without additional support).

• Around 10% of autistic people are very good at a specific ability such as playing a musical instrument (Autistic Savants)

Autism characteristics

• Autistic people can have difficulty forming relationships with other people due to differences in communication.

• Another feature of Autism can be delayed speech and language development

• Lack of eye contact in around 50% of cases

• Unresponsiveness/inappropriate response to environmental stimuli

• Repetitive behaviour/ritualistic behaviour

Extreme male brain AO1

• A biological explanation for Autism

• According to this explanation, Autism is caused by excess exposure to and/or production of testosterone in the womb

• Brains will become more masculinised as they develop (‘male brain’). There are an ‘extreme’ version of the brain structure/activity seen in allistic males

• Features of more masculinised brains include: Less connected corpus callosum, more lateralised (which means the tendency for some neural functions or cognitive processes to be specialised to one side of the brain or the other). This means that they are adept (good at) ‘male’ tasks such as ‘organisation’, being rule and task focused rather than person focused.

Extreme male brain - features and characteristics

• Typically, men are more likely to be systemisers (they use rules to organise internal and external events) than women. Autism is an example of extreme systemisers, where the person likes patterns, rules, organisation and is low in empathising (reading others emotions)

• Difficulties with understanding others emotions and socialisation problems, as their brain is lateralised and they are higher systemisers

• Males more common than females (3:1), which makes sense if Autism is an extreme version of whatthe ‘typical’ male brain is like

• Stereotypical play in childhood - stacking and lining things

• Their love of routine- getting upset when things are not routine etc

• Delayed speech- Males develop speech slower than women on average

• Savant abilities tend to be math/spatial related etc

• Sensitive to noise

• Lack of eye contact

• Inability to understand/ read others

• Usually motivated around 4 years

Strengths of extreme male brain explanation of autism

• Falter found that autistic children did better in mental rotation and figure dis-embedding tasks (typical male tasks) → shows that they do seem to have a higher ability with systemiser tasks suggesting this might be a credible explanation of Autism.

• Wen & Wen Found that traits linked to Autism are also linked with anti-social personality, such as lower empathy (also more males get this, ratio 4:1). They also saw brain differences between autism and those who are allistic (focusing on the amygdala) → suggests they do have a ‘extreme male brain’ and the theory is a credible one to explain Autism

• Frazer - those with autism had a smaller corpus callosum

• EMB is an empirical and therefore scientific explanation of Autism because it is measuring brain structure directly → This means that we can directly and reliably test the brain structure to show autistic people do have ‘extreme male brain’

• EMB is a useful theory, with high face validity as explains Autism characteristics such as being strict with rules → Since this can explain things like the characteristics/ features it supports that this is a valid explanation and can help put in place things to help people who may be struggling.

Weaknesses of male extreme brain explanation of autism

• Falter found there was no correlation with performance on tasks and finger ratio – (from Biological psychology: 2D, 4D ratio being linked to testosterone levels) →this means that EMB may be a less credible explanation of Autism if there is no relationship between T levels and Autism characteristics.

• Other theories - Autism could be an impairment in Theory of Mind, not testosterone levels. ToM may be a better explanation but it also suggests the biological one might be incomplete as an explanation if it ignores this cognitive deficit, making it reductionist.

• Monotropic people’s attention is driven by their interests, narrowly focused and sustained over long periods → This can explain difficulties that autistic people commonly experience with social communication, ‘specialisms’ or ‘deep passions’ which other explanations such as EMB do not account for.

• We don’t know if testosterone causes Autism or whether Autism causes differing T levels →this raises cause and effect problems and could be because much of the research about testosterone and autism is correlational in nature.

• Autism is not just caused by genes as other factors such as parental age and birth complications combined with a genetic predisposition can also increase a person’s risk of developing autism.

• We do not see any other effects of increased testosterone that we may expect, such as heightened aggression. This may mean that we are not getting the whole explanation of Autism, or not understanding the whole picture as we don’t see some other effects.

Theory of mind AO1

• This explanation suggests that Autism is caused by a cognitive deficit

• Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability to see the world from perspective of others (put yourself into others shoes)

• This explanation suggests that ToM is impaired for autistic people, so they cannot understand another person’s point of view.

• ToM normally develops 2-3 but autistic people are impaired in it/ it doesn’t fully develop

• One way of testing ToM abilities is via the Sally-Anne test (where will Sally look for her ball?)

• ToM explanation says that autistic children do not understand others facial expression, as they cannot see things from others perspectives, which means they have difficulty understanding others non-verbal communication.

• According to the ToM explanation autistic people are high systemisers, so they use rules to organise internal and external events

Theory of mind - features and characteristics

• Reading emotions/ social skill interactions may be difficult

• Lack of pretend play/ role play

• Difficulty understanding sarcasm

• Systemisers - like routine

• Language delay - don’t follow eye gaze/ social cues

Strengths of theory of mind explanation of autism

• Sally-Anne Test (Wimmer & Perner) supports this as the autistic children were unable to predict where Sally (the doll) would look for the ball, based on their own knowledge → demonstrates that autistic people have difficulty seeing the world from the point of view of others, making the cognitive explanation of autism credible.

• Baron-Cohen Eye Test showed that autistic children were less able to identify the emotions of others when looking at someone’s eyes compared to allistic individuals, 16.3% vs 20.3% → demonstrates that they have difficulty seeing the world from the point of view of others/ cannot understand how others are feeling, making the cognitive explanation of Autism credible.

• Osterling & Dawson Studied babies at first birthday parties. The ones who were later diagnosed Autistic tended to not pay attention to others’ faces. They concluded that Autistic children tend not to consider the mental states of others → demonstrating they have difficulty seeing the world from the point of view of others making the cognitive explanation credible.

Weaknesses of theory of mind explanation of autism

• Schick - There was a significant delay in ToM tasks in deaf children born to hearing parents (who already demonstrate language delays usually) → suggests that the ToM deficit might be a result of the Autism not the cause as it is seen in other ‘language delayed’ groups making the theory less credible.

• Sheeran - Carried out a study on high functioning autistic adolescents and found very little difference in performance on TOM tasks, compared to normally developing children (they could do mental state reasoning tests) which goes against the TOM explanation → suggests that using ToM is not a sufficient explanation for Autism.

• Could be Biological (EMB) not cognitive, if this other theory is true, it makes this one less credible as this other theory may be a better explanation/it suggests the cognitive one might be incomplete as an explanation if it ignores the biological underpinnings

• It is difficult to test cognitive processes like ToM directly → means that the theory is not empirical (as it is measuring mental processes), making the theory less credible as we can’t test and retest it to see if it is true.

• Double empathy problem - while a problem does exist, it is not solely a problem with the autistic person. Rather it is a shared problem because a non-autistic person struggles to empathise with an autistic person as much (or arguably even more than) an autistic person struggles to empathise with them. Milton argues that differences in social communication are interpreted as a disorder by the non-autistic majority and the diagnosis becomes a ’self-fulfilling prophecy’.

• We don’t know if ToM impairments cause Autism or whether being autistic causes lack of ToM → This correlational research into ToM makes it less credible.

• Doesn’t explain male to female ratio (Why males get it more than females…whereas EMB does) → means the theory might not be as credible as other explanations

Autism therapy ABA

• ABA is based on Operant conditioning – rewarding a behaviour increases the chances of doing it again and not rewarding it (ignoring it), decreases the chances of doing it again.

• Conduct a functional behavioural assessment to figure out what behavioural issues the child with autism might have, eg eye contact

• The effective way to interact with others is shown and rewards are given for improved behaviour when displayed - this is individual based on what they want/ like

• Any behaviours that are seen as unacceptable are ignored and no reinforcement given

• Over time behaviours are transferred from one situation or responses to another

• Mostly done 1:1 in a structured way with the therapist instigating behaviours

• Often done as ‘discrete trial training’ (focuses on small steps at any one time)

Strengths of ABA

• Cebula looked at families and found that there were more positive interactions between siblings and Autistic individuals in the ABA group → This shows that ABA can be effective to bring about behavioural change making ABA an effective therapy.

• Gale - Food was held on the spoon for 30s in front of the child 20 different times, regardless of child response (so ignoring the disruptive behaviour). They found that acceptance of food increased and disruptive behaviour decreased. → This shows ABA can be effective to bring about behavioural change making ABA an effective therapy.

• Yu et al. showed that the use of applied behavioural analysis is effective for autistic children so the therapy has validity. They found that applied behavioural analysis led to a significant improvement in socialisation, communication and expressive language in autistic children.

Weaknesses of ABA

• Warren - Reviewed 159 studies into ABA; 13 were good quality, 56 fair and 90 poor. Early intervention for those under 2yr showed ‘promising’ results. However, overall he thought the results were not consistent enough to claim effectiveness → may not apply to all children

• Grindle - parents of children with autism found some aspects of the therapy challenging, such as the focus being on the child with autism and the rest of the family’s needs were often ignored

• CBT - deals with anxiety rather than changing behaviour

• Socially controlling because trying to alter behaviour

• Once the child stop being rewarded for the behaviours beyond the ABA training the new behaviour may go extinct → Therefore we don’t know if it will be effective for children over a long period of time

Autism therapy CBT

• CBT is designed to help people notice and understand how their thoughts, behaviours and emotions affect each other

• It is based on exploring and altering the child’s faulty thoughts and feelings which cause

  anxiety

• Identify: do an assessment to figure out the issues that this child has (maladaptive thoughts causing anxiety) - skills they need to work on

• Challenge: look for the evidence which goes against their thoughts, you examine alternative explanations. May also teach various skills like relaxation techniques.

• Change: replace the maladaptive thoughts with more adaptive ones. They practice this in the sessions over and over again, then they go out into the real world and practice it there.

Adaptation to CBT for children with autism

• Although Autistic people can distinguish between thoughts, beliefs and behaviours, they can struggle with recognising the emotions and working with abstract thoughts.

• Therefore, repetition and visual cues are used during CBT with autistic children, (e.g. using a picture of a thermometer) for them to rate their anxiety. The child finds this easier to relate to and is a more useful tool than just a ten-point scale on how they feel.

Strengths of CBT

• Sofronoff - children experience less anxiety after CBT [assessed using parental self-report]. The child also was able to identify positive strategies to deal with stressful situations that in the past would have been a problem. Effectiveness also improved if the parents were involved in the treatment. → Supporting evidence that the treatment is effective

• Wood - 78.5% improvement in anxiety for Autistic children after 16 CBT sessions compared to 8.7% of children in the control group who were waiting for treatment. Three months later the children were reassessed and still showing improvement → provides information for the effectiveness of CBT at helping alleviate anxiety associated with Autism.

• Individual based therapy (tailored anxiety focus etc). → This is good because it increases the usefulness since it is likely to be more effective (as we’re focusing on their specific issues, it’s more likely to help them)

• CBT teaches skills e.g. dealing with their anxiety so can be used long term. → This means that the therapy may be more long lasting in its effectiveness.

• CBT gives person more control of therapy than ABA as they are able to identify and challenge their own thoughts and behaviours themselves. → This means that it is less social controlling and the autistic person can understand why they are doing what they are doing.

Weaknesses of CBT

• Oii - group of children had non-significant reductions in anxiety levels, particularly regarding social phobias and obsessive-compulsive tendencies → shows that the therapy isn’t always effective

• Weston - CBT was not superior to control conditions when used to treat either affective disorders of symptoms associated with autism → not effective for autistic children anxiety as it doesn’t outperform control groups

• Children may have difficulty with the verbal and introspective nature of the therapy (it is especially going to be a difficult therapy for those who are non-verbal or lack the skills to reflect) → This makes the therapy less useful and thus less effective for the children.

• CBT is mainly focused on managing a child’s anxiety. → Therefore, can’t directly treat all behaviours that may be causing a problem and may be less effective if the child does not have any anxieties. OTOH → indirectly, CBT does help with more than just anxiety

• Since CBT is usually done 1 to 1 with a trained therapist, it can be costly and time consuming → This makes it less available to a lot of people and therefore less useful form of treatment.

• Many criticise CBT for still using the ‘deficit’ model and trying to teach the autistic person to ‘cope’ rather than providing structural/environmental changes

Child key question - ‘what should parents consider before sending their children to daycare?’ AO1

• Many parents need/want to go back to work after the birth of a child so they need to put them in day care

• Day care can consist of other family members looking after the child, sending the child to a child minders or sending them to a nursery.

• Being looked after by family members has the advantage of the child knowing who is looking after them and more one on one care.

• Child minder and nursery nurses have to be qualified and are inspected unlike family members.

• Children might have to go since parents must work- Daycare can be expensive so we need to know if it is beneficial (for both the parents decisions- and got society if it has negative effects)

Child key question AO2

• Parents need to consider the staff to child ratio as the more staff there are to smaller numbers of children the better the day care.

• Parents also need to make sure that the staff are highly qualified, there is a low staff turnover and the staff interact with the children in their care in a positive manner.

• Children in full time day care may experience negative effects.

• Key workers in day care provide a temporary attachment for the child when away from the primary caregiver.

• Social skills

• Attachment impact

• Cognitive stimulation

Child key question AO3

• Li - Children in high quality daycare improved their academic abilities, memory abilities and language abilities

• Sylva - children who started nursery before three years old will benefit intellectually,

• Andersson - children who went to high quality day care before the age of one were more socially and cognitively advanced by the age of 8.

• The EPPE project also found that children in high quality day care benefitted cognitively and socially.

• Shea - Children became more sociable the longer they were at nursery. The amount of aggressive behaviour towards one another decreased

• Belsky & Rovine - children who were put into day care for 20 hours a week, before they were one, had an insecure avoidant attachment with their mother, and those over 35 hours a week also had an insecure attachment with their fathers.

• NICHD study - day care can lead to the children having behavioural problems, especially if the day care was of low quality.

• Clarke-Stewart - Children who had attended nurseries could cope better in social situations, and were able to interact better with peers, compared with children previously looked after in family settings

• DiLalla - found a negative correlation between the amount of time spent in day care and pro-social behaviour: children who spent more time in day care were less cooperative and helpful in their dealings with other children

• Vandell - extensive child care since infancy is associated with poorer academic & conduct report cards, as well as being rated as having poorer peer relationships & emotional health.

• Belsky and Rovine - More full-time care infants were classified as insecure (47%) than those with little or no daycare altogether (25%). Those with low part-time care showed 21% insecure attachments (and 35% for high part-time care)

• Children with poor cognitive ability were found to gain most in the long-term from daycare and the earlier they started the better

• The NICHD - children who's mothers lacked responsiveness (and therefore may be insecurely attached) did less well at day care

Aim of child practical

To see if there is a relationship between childhood secure attachment (via self-report) and adulthood secure attachment (via self-report)

Procedure of child practical

• 14 participants via opportunity sampling

• Made a questionnaire with 10 closed likert scale questions asking about childhood secure attachment, e.g. did you often seek comfort from your mother in new situations ‘Not like me at all…….just like me’ and adulthood secure attachment e.g. ‘I miss my partner when they’re not there’

• Piloted it first with a small group of people so we could see if the questions were fine and improve/changed them as necessary

• Right to withdraw was clearly given

• Debriefed at the end explaining the aim of the practical and what will be done with the results

Analysis of child practical

• Scored each question out of a maximum of 5 (high scores equalling secure attachment)

• One or two questions on each scale were reverse scored (because of the wording of the question)

• We put the scores for childhood in one column and their own score for adulthood attachment into the next column

• We used a Spearman’s Rho analysis (as it was a correlational design)

Result of child practical

We got an observed value of 0.231 at P<0.05 one-tailed and a critical value of 0.4764 Since our observed value is smaller it makes the results non-significant and so there is not a relationship between childhood and adulthood attachment, so we reject our hypothesis

Strengths of child practical

• One strength of the practical was it was standardised with everyone getting the same 10 questions about attachment. → This means that we can repeat the study to see if the results about the relationship between the two secure attachments is reliable.

• One strength of the practical is it collected quantitative data about the levels of secure attachment. → This means we can do statistical tests to analyse the results e.g. Spearman’s rho since we were looking for a relationship to see if the results are due to chance or not.

• We conducted a pilot study to test the questions/procedure to see if the questions are measuring attachment etc. → This improves the validity as it eliminated troublesome questions that may not be relevant or effective at capturing accurate data

Weaknesses of child practical

• One weakness is that since people are answering sensitive questions about their relationships with family and friends/partners they may lie in order to look good → This means the results about secure attachment may be affected by social desirability and therefore may not be a valid measurement.

• One weakness is the small and limited sample, since all the people answering questions about attachment came from my friends and family/college it means they might share characteristics with each other e.g. similar upbringings → This is an issue as means that their results about attachment relationships may not be representative of a wider population and thus, less generalisable.

• Quantitative data doesn’t give us the depth and detail about the attachment people felt that we could gain if we used open questions → This means that we don’t get a good understanding of the causes of attachment making the results less valid and less useful.

• People may interpret the numbers differently, e.g. what a 4 represents differently on the attachment scale → This makes their response about their attachment less valid which might affect the results.

4 principles of UNCRC

• Participation (in decisions made about them)

• Protection (from harm)

• Provision (of services and all the children need)

• Privacy (and confidentiality at all times)

UNCRC articles

• Article 1: all under 18 are classed as children

• Article 3: the child’s best interests should be top priority

• Article 5: parents get to make decisions

• Article 9. child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will

• Article 12: right to express their views, feelings and wishes

• Article 13. right to freedom of expression

• Article 16: right to privacy

• Article 18: both parents have common responsibilities for the upbringing and development of the child

• Article 19: children should be protected from harm

• Article 36: should be protected from all forms of exploitation

Individual differences in child

• Attachment type can affect individuals differently, such as issues of child temperament.

• Positive and negative aspects of day care can be affected by individual differences such as gender or temperament (or SES)

Developmental in child

• Effects on development of day care.

• Effects on development of attachment interactions, including deprivation, privation and separation

• Effects on development of developmental disorders, including autism.