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The construction of child-caregiver relationship in childcare centre: adaptation of Parent Attachment Diary for professional caregivers
Abstract
From their origins, Italian early childhood services paid attention to the transition from family to childcare centre, explicitly referring to attachment theory. In the present study, the Parent Attachment Diary was adapted and applied within a childcare centre context to examine the development of infants’ relationship with their professional caregivers during the earliest months of attendance. The research focuses on two studies, using the adapted version of PAD, the Professional Caregiver Attachment Diary (PCAD). The two studies involved a total of 87 professional caregivers and 222 infants aged between 4 and 35 months (M = 16 months). After both 2 and 4 months after starting the childcare centre, children show a significant decrease of Avoidant and Resistant attachment behaviours, but Secure behaviours do not increase over time. However, behaviours coded as Non Distressed significantly increase, which could indicate children feel more secure in the new setting of care over time. These results demonstrate the utility of the PCAD to describe the process of adaptation in the new context.
... Although the literature on reflective diaries is increasing, particularly studies in the field of health, there is a far more limited number of empirical research articles relating to this method and its deployment compared to other qualitative methods (Alaszewski, 2006). There are few examples of published empirical research which include a diary element within the early childhood sector (Macagno & Molina, 2020;Page & Elfer, 2013;Wong et al., 2015); these were examined closely to ascertain insights into the usefulness of processes to this particular study. Diaries allow people to record their individual understanding of everyday activities (Morrison, 2012), giving researchers rich descriptions of participants' understanding and feelings about the concept (Bedwell et al., 2012). ...
This paper explores initial results fromphase one of a research project examining early childhood practitioners’ (ECP) perceptions of empathy within their practice. Empathy is widely understood as the ability to understand others’ feelings, to see things through other people’s eyes, imagining what it would be like to be that person in that situation. It is widely accepted that anyone working with young children should have excellent empathy skills. However, although there is an abundance of published research on the role of empathy within nursing and social work, and limited research in the education profession, there is scarcely any research of empathy within ECP practice. This paper presents initial findings from Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) research with a sample of nine ECPs working in the UK, research which is derived from ongoing PhD study. Participants were asked to keep reflective diaries of their empathic interactions, and these were followed up with semi-structured interviews to further investigate responses. The study has revealed a range of definitions of empathy and found evidence of high levels of empathy and emotion within the practice. A second phase of research aims to examine types of empathy and the effect of emotional labour on practitioners.
Early childhood educational development (ECED) is increasingly recognized as a crucial period for human development. We studied at a local level the relation of cultural capital, economic capital, and participation in center-based ECED. We used a high-quality national database collecting data from 103 Italian provinces. Choropleth maps, structural equation modeling (SEM), and mediation analysis have been adopted to assess the effect of cultural and economic capital on participation in ECED. We employed multi-sample SEM to assess geographical disparities at a regional level. We found that Central Italian provinces present the highest level of cultural capital, as well as the highest rate of participation in ECED. Cultural capital, but not economic capital, is associated with participation in ECED in the short and medium term. At least in part, cultural capital can mediate a historical effect played by the economic capital or by the cultural capital itself. Together, these results highlight the importance of investing in cultural capital as it may also foster the development and the rate of participation in center-based ECED. This may mitigate the effect on education of social disparities and economic inequalities.
Research guided by attachment theory as formulated by Bowlby and Ainsworth is branching out in exciting new directions. The 12 chapters collected together in this Monograph present theoretical and methodological tools that will facilitate further research on attachment across the life span, across generations, and across cultures. The Monograph is divided into 4 parts. Part 1 provides the theoretical framework, emphasizing the ethological and the psychoanalytic roots of attachment theory. Part 2 is concerned with translating theory into measurement (presenting the Attachment Q-sort and the Adult Attachment Interview that raised attachment research to the level of representation). Part 3 chapters examine short-term and long-term adaptations to nonmaternal care. Part 4 is devoted to cross-national research on attachment in infancy (Germany, Japan, and Israel).
This study investigates toddlers' initial reaction to day care entry and their behaviour change over the first few months in care. One hundred and four toddlers (10-33 months of age) in Viennese childcare centres participated in the study. One-hour video observations were carried out at 3 time points during the first 4 months in the setting and coded into a total of 36 5-min observation segments. Multilevel models (observation segments nested within children) with an autoregressive error structure fitted data well. Two weeks after entry into care, toddlers' levels of affect and interaction were low. Overall, changes in all areas of observed behaviour were less than expected. There were considerable individual differences in change over time, mostly unrelated to child characteristics. Significant associations between children's positive affect, their dynamic interactions and their explorative and investigative interest were found.
According to data from the 1997 NICHD Study of Child Care, center-based child care can have deleterious effects on children's social-emotional development. We hypothesized that training child care professionals to develop positive relationships with children in their care would improve the quality of center-based child care. Thirty-three professional caregiver-child pairs participated in the intervention group and 24 professional caregiver-child pairs were assigned to a care as usual comparison group. The intervention consisted of an informational and a practice component with an emotional availability (EA) coach. The infants and toddlers (ages 11 to 23 months) in the classrooms were enrolled in the project only if they spent at least 20 hr per week in center-based care. The measures included were (a) the EA Scales, (b) the Attachment Q-Sort, and (c) the Classroom Interaction Scale. The intervention group professional caregiver-child relationships showed improvements on the EA Scales, Attachment Q-Sort, and the Classroom Interaction Scale from pre- to posttest, compared to the comparison group, who showed some decrements over a comparable period of time.
This paper presents single-subject analyses of newly developing attachment relationships in 10 foster infant-caregiver dyads. Using a diary methodology, at least 2 months of daily data were provided by foster parents on infants' attachment behaviors. Foster infant attachment was also assessed using the Strange Situation. Foster mother state of mind regarding attachment was measured using the Adult Attachment Interview. For eight infants, diary data revealed predominant patterns of attachment behavior emerging within 2 months of placement. In most cases, diary data predicted Strange Situation classifications. Both Strange Situation and diary data indicated that the three children placed in foster care before 12 months of age with foster parents having primary or secondary autonomous states of mind were classified as having secure attachments. The five children placed after 12 months of age showed predominantly insecure attachment behavior in the diary and were classified as insecure in the Strange Situation. Contingency analyses of behavioral sequences reported in the diary revealed that foster parents tended to complement their foster childrens' attachment behaviors.
This study investigated the development of attachment relationships in 38 foster infant-caregiver dyads over the first 2 months of placement. We used the Parent Attachment Diary to measure foster infants' daily attachment behaviors, the Adult Attachment Interview to examine foster parents' attachment states of mind, and Ainsworth's Strange Situation to capture attachment classifications. We examined differences in diary scales (secure, avoidant, resistant, and coherence) as they related to age at placement and foster parent attachment, using hierarchical linear modeling and analyses of variance. The results indicated infants with autonomous foster parents and infants placed at younger ages showed higher early and overall levels of secure behavior, less avoidant behavior, and more coherent attachment strategies compared to infants placed with nonautonomous foster parents. Changes in attachment behaviors over time were not predicted by the models; however, there was a significant decrease in the daily coherence of attachment behaviors associated with Strange Situation disorganization. Finally, we found significant concordance between the diary and Strange Situation scales for secure and avoidant behaviors.
Meta-analysis aggregated results of 40 investigations involving 2,867 children who averaged 29.6 (SD = 8.6) months of age when their attachments to care providers were assessed using either the Strange Situation (SS) or the Attachment Q-Set (AQS). As opposed to parents, secure attachments to nonparental care providers were less likely (using SS) or equally likely (using AQS), respectively. Secure child-care provider attachments were more likely in home- than center-based care, when the children were assessed longer after enrollment, and when they were girls. Whereas care providers' sensitivity to individual children predicted attachment security only in the small groups that characterize home-based settings, group-related sensitivity was a reliable predictor of secure child-care provider attachment, especially in child care centers.
The aim of this study was to identify factors that help toddlers form attachment relationships with their caregivers during the transition from sole home care to out-of-home childcare. We investigated relationship building between toddlers and their new caregivers during the first four months in childcare. In a sample of 104 toddlers (aged 10–33 months) in 71 Viennese childcare centres, we assessed attachment security (using the Attachment Q-Sort) at three time points. We also assessed children's experiences with their new care providers at each time point, focusing on dyadic caregiver sensitivity (a) during one-to-one interactions with the individual target child, and (b) during interactions with all children in the group. We investigated whether attachment security in the early months of childcare differs between girls and boys, to see if gender, in combination with caregiver interaction, has a role in predicting differences between toddlers’ attachment security. Higher attachment security was found in girls, and in those children with caregivers scoring higher on the group-related measure of sensitivity. Dyadic sensitivity did not predict toddlers’ attachment security. Findings support the development of attachment/relationship theory, in the context of childcare for young children, that takes account of children's experiences in groups rather than only in one-to-one interactions.
A network of multiple caregivers contributing to the care of an infant is the norm in many non-Western cultural contexts. Current observational measures of caregiver sensitive responsiveness to infant signals focus on single caregivers, failing to capture the total experience of the infant when it comes to the sensitive responsiveness received from multiple sources. The current paper aims to introduce the construct of received sensitivity that captures the sensitivity that an infant experiences from multiple sources in cultural contexts where simultaneous multiple caregiving is common. The paper further presents an adaptation of Ainsworth's Sensitivity versus Insensitivity observation scale to allow for the assessment of sensitivity as received by the infant regardless of who is providing the sensitive responses to its signals. The potential usefulness of the Received Sensitivity scale is illustrated by two case studies of infants from an Agta forager community in the Philippines where infants are routinely taken care of by multiple caregivers. The case studies show that the infants' total experience of being responded to sensitively cannot be simply derived from the sum of individual caregiver sensitivity scores, demonstrating the potential added value of the new Received Sensitivity observation measure.
In this qualitative study, the relationship development process of three infant–caregiver dyads in a university-affiliated childcare setting was explored and some contributing factors to the development were identified. Data were collected through multiple methods (observations, video recordings, interviews, documents) for a semester. The findings of this study reveal both common and unique patterns of relationship development. In general, it took about 6 to 11 weeks to build firm relationships in the supportive context. Yet, the time and opportunity that they had together, what they brought with them (e.g. personalities, relationship histories), and their match brought about differences. In addition, the infant–caregiver relationship was two-way and reciprocal, and the context had a significant impact on the development. This study supports the significance of the infant–caregiver relationship in high-quality infant educare and caregiver education and sheds light on the necessity of a process-oriented and holistic perspective on infant–caregiver relationship development.
Studies of attachment in day-care children and dependency in children of employed mothers are viewed as sharing concerns about the impact of daily mother-child separations and multiple caregivers on the development and maintenance of attachment. Conclusions from research in related areas-maternal deprivation, institutionalization, and parent-child relations-are used to conceptualize and hypothesize about relevant dimensions of daily separation experiences. A discussion is presented to make a case for differentiating day care and maternal employment according to two particular dimensions of relationships and care both at home and in alternate care-quality and stability. Suggestions are made for new research directions and emphases in order to study these dimensions systematically and to clarify some of the confusion characterizing results of relevant research.
Ethological attachment theory is a landmark of 20th century social and behavioral sciences theory and research. This new paradigm for understanding primary relationships across the lifespan evolved from John Bowlby's critique of psychoanalytic drive theory and his own clinical observations, supplemented by his knowledge of fields as diverse as primate ethology, control systems theory, and cognitive psychology. By the time he had written the first volume of his classic Attachment and Loss trilogy, Mary D. Salter Ainsworth's naturalistic observations in Uganda and Baltimore, and her theoretical and descriptive insights about maternal care and the secure base phenomenon had become integral to attachment theory. Patterns of Attachment reports the methods and key results of Ainsworth's landmark Baltimore Longitudinal Study. Following upon her naturalistic home observations in Uganda, the Baltimore project yielded a wealth of enduring, benchmark results on the nature of the child's tie to its primary caregiver and the importance of early experience. It also addressed a wide range of conceptual and methodological issues common to many developmental and longitudinal projects, especially issues of age appropriate assessment, quantifying behavior, and comprehending individual differences. In addition, Ainsworth and her students broke new ground, clarifying and defining new concepts, demonstrating the value of the ethological methods and insights about behavior. Today, as we enter the fourth generation of attachment study, we have a rich and growing catalogue of behavioral and narrative approaches to measuring attachment from infancy to adulthood. Each of them has roots in the Strange Situation and the secure base concept presented in Patterns of Attachment. It inclusion in the Psychology Press Classic Editions series reflects Patterns of Attachment's continuing significance and insures its availability to new generations of students, researchers, and clinicians.
Description of relations among twenty-eight mother-infant pairs in Uganda. Findings indicate earlier manifestation of separation anxiety than in American infants, which seems to be a function of the closer attachment of infant to mother in Uganda. Harvard Book List (edited) 1971 #593 (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The chapter begins with the premise that caregiving is not restricted to parents, and that parents therefore are not children's only attachment figures. Howes and Spieker examine attachment in the context of multiple caregivers—first considering children's attachments to other-than-mother caregivers, and then describing child-mother attachment relationship quality when children participate in day care programs, where they may develop attachment relationships with nonparental caregivers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This study investigated the role of time with a high-ability teacher on infant-teacher attachment in an infant care setting. Sixty-one relationship dyads involving infants from 10 to 38 months were assessed using the Waters and Deane Attachment Q-Sort. Relationships were classified as secure or insecure. Time with teacher was measured at low (5–8 months); medium (9–12 months) and high levels (over 1 year). Analyses of covariance, controlling for age of infant and age of entry in center, showed a significant main effect for time with the teacher. Ninety-one percent of infants who had been with their teacher for more than 1 year had secure attachments as compared to 67% at the middle level of time and 50% at the lowest level of time. The high level of time was significantly different from medium and low, but medium and low were not significantly different from each other. This study offers implications for indicators of quality research as well as for infant programming.
This article describes how three toddlers in their first child care experience learned to relate to the adults in the center. The stories are constructed from data gathered as part of a qualitative case study project that explored the experience of starting child care from the perspectives of all the participants in this event: the children, the mothers, and the teachers at the child care centers. A critical polytextualist approach is used in discussing the three children's stories. Findings suggest that a primary caregiver system has much to offer in enhancing very young children's experience of starting child care.
This review paper presents and places in context findings from 23 manuscripts based on the data sets of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD). The NICHD study tracked the development of more than 1000 children from birth through age 15. The children were born across the USA to families that were diverse in terms of their economic, educational, and ethnic background. The children also varied in terms of the timing, extent, quality, and type of their child care experiences. The findings reported in this review paper pertain to (1) predictors of child-mother attachment; (2) links between child-mother attachment and children's developmental outcomes; and (3) methods for assessing attachment. The review paper also includes suggestions for future attachment research afforded by the data sets of the NICHD SECCYD. Not all the hypotheses tested in the reviewed papers were confirmed, and those that were confirmed were associated with modest effect sizes. Some findings emerged under specific conditions, even though they were expected to be more universal. These findings need to be discussed and aligned with theory. Also, the extent to which the findings generalize beyond the historical period and the country in which the data were collected merits discussion and exploration.
We assessed the quality of center child care relationships with adults and peers for 414 children (ages 14 to 54 months). Classrooms were classified by ratio and group size provisions of the Federal Interagency Day Care Requirements (FIDCR) and by the Early Childhood and Infant and Toddler Environmental Rating Scales. Children cared for in classrooms meeting FIDCR ratios were more likely to be in classrooms rated as good or very good in caregiving and activities. Children in classrooms rated as good or very good in caregiving were more likely to be securely attached to teachers. Securely attached children were more competent with peers. Children cared for in classrooms meeting FIDCR group size were more likely to be in classrooms rated higher in activities. Children in classrooms rated high in activities were likely to orient to both adults and peers. Children with social orientations to adults and peers were more competent with peers.
75 infants (mean age 15 months) were observed 3 times in the Strange Situation with their professional caregivers, mothers, and fathers. Sensitivity of these attachment figures to the infant's signals during free play, as well as a number of day-care characteristics, were assessed. Attachment classification distribution of infant-caregiver dyads did not differ significantly from infant-mother or infant-father attachment classification distributions. The quality of infant-caregiver attachment was independent of both infant-mother and infant-father attachments. About 10% of the infants had 3 insecure attachments. Professional caregivers observed with more than 1 infant did not have similar types of attachment classifications to all infants with whom they were observed. Infants who were securely attached to their professional caregivers spent more hours per week in day-care, and came from a middle-class background. Their caregivers appeared to be younger and more sensitive during free play than caregivers with whom the infants developed an insecure relationship.
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