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The current research reports that mothers' security of attachment predicts their children's sense of God's closeness. A total of 71 mother–child dyads participated (children's M age = 7.5). Mothers' attachment organization was studied with the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; Main, Goldwyn, & Hesse, 2003) and their religiosity and attachment to God were measured with questionnaires. Children were told stories about visually represented children in attachment-activating and attachment-neutral situations, and placed a God symbol on a felt board to represent God's closeness to the fictional children. Children of secure mothers placed the God symbol closer (d = .78) than children of insecure mothers across both types of situations, suggesting that children's experiences with secure-insecure mothers generalize to their sense of God's closeness. Also, girls (but not boys) placed the God symbol closer in attachment-activating than in attachment-neutral situations, giving partial support for an attachment normative God-as-safe-haven model. Finally, mothers' religiosity and attachment to God were unrelated to child outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examined the antecedents of preschool age children's mental representations of attachment, assessed using the Attachment Story Completion Task (ASCT). Antecedent predictors were maternal attachment scripts, assessed using the Attachment Script Assessment (ASA), and the child's secure base behaviors, assessed using the Attachment Q-Set (AQS). Participants were 121 mothers and their preschool children assessed in three samples (Portuguese sample, n = 31; US Midwestern sample, n = 38; US Southeastern sample, n = 52). AQS and ASA assessments were completed approximately 1.5 years before the ASCT data were collected. No cross-sample contrasts for the attachment variables were significant. Correlations and structural equation modeling (SEM) indicated that the three attachment measures were significantly associated and that both maternal secure base script knowledge and children's secure base behaviors (AQS) were uniquely and significantly associated with children's mental representations of attachment (ASCT). A test of the indirect effect between maternal scripts and child representations through children's secure base behaviors was not significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study is to evaluate language outcome in pre-term children, considering multiple factors. The hypothesis is that early communicative capacity (pre-verbal communicative utterances) is affected mainly by biological (prematurity, birth weight, and gender) and social factors (maternal education), while more advanced linguistic abilities (i.e., combinatorial and syntactic abilities) are mostly influenced by previously acquired communicative abilities. Eighteen monolingual Italian pre-term children (birth weight between 750 and 1600 grams, gestational age <37 weeks; 13 males and five females) were compared with a control group of 18 age-matched full-term children (8 males, 10 females). The longitudinal design comprised motor and cognitive assessment at 14 and 36 months, and communicative evaluation by direct observation at 14, 24, 30, and 36 months, and by indirect observation at 24 and 30 months. The main results evidenced were delayed development in pre-term compared to full-term children, particularly after 24 months of age; intra-individual differences in the pre-term group; and a strong effect of prematurity on communicative ability at 14 and 24 months; however, more advanced communicative developmental stages were influenced both by prematurity and by previously acquired linguistic skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides data supporting the reliability and validity of an Italian version of the adult attachment script representation task, designed by Waters & Rodrigues-Doolabh (2004). Specifically, we tested hypotheses concerning positive relations between attachment scriptedness scores and two other representational measures, derived from the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). In addition, we tested the hypothesis that secure base script scores should predict maternal sensitivity in the context of mother – infant interaction. Thirty-one mothers completed narrative protocols and received scriptedness scores using the Waters & Rodrigues-Doolabh (2004) criteria. Prior to the attachment script assessment, mothers had been assessed using the AAI and had been observed in the context of infant – mother interactions to assess maternal sensitivity. Assessment of instrument reliability was satisfactory (Cronbach's α >.70) and both hypotheses were supported; the attachment scriptedness score (based on 4 attachment narratives) was positively and significantly associated with the AAI coherence score, the continuous security score derived from the AAI State of Mind scales, and with maternal sensitivity. These data extend to another socio-cultural milieu, previous findings supporting reliability, convergent, and predictive validity of the attachment script representation task as a measure of adult attachment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]