New research sheds light on attachment disturbances in adopted and foster children.

By Tori DeAngelis
Monitor staff

Adopted children pose especially interesting questions for attachment researchers. Because their backgrounds are sometimes characterized by abuse or neglect?and in some cases, complete abandonment?they provide a chance for behavioral scientists to examine how early attachment problems may form under adverse conditions, and how later caregiving can affect these children?s ability to form relationships.

In one recent study, psychologist Kim Chisholm, PhD, of St. Francis Xavier University, looked at attachment patterns in Romanian youngsters who were put in orphanages in the first few months of life. Many of the children had no contact at all with their birth mothers or with a consistent caretaker, going directly from the hospital into an institution.

To examine how the age of adoption may have affected these youngsters, Chisholm compared three groups of children: 46 Romanian youngsters who had been in an orphanage for at least eight months before being adopted; 30 Romanian orphans who were adopted before they were 4 months old; and 46 Canadian-born nonadopted children who were matched to the Romanian samples for age and gender.

Her study contained two parts: Intensive interviews with the adoptive parents when the children were 3 and again when they were 4; and an experimental parent-child interaction when the children were 4.

Examining interactions

In the experimental segment, Chisholm videotaped how the youngsters interacted when the parent was present; when the parent was absent and a stranger was present; and when the parent returned after the stranger had left.

The videotapes revealed that the children adopted at a later age were much more likely to show insecure attachment patterns than the other two groups. In particular, they displayed more severe, atypical forms of attachment?unusual variations on the two more typical insecure attachment styles. Fifty-two percent of the later-adopted youngsters showed these atypical styles, compared to 17 percent of the nonadopted youngsters and 11 percent of the early-adopted Romanian children.

The two typical insecure attachment styles are defended or insecure and coercive or ambivalent. Insecure youngsters tend to avoid the caretaker, show little emotion and look more relaxed when the caretaker leaves; coercive infants are more distressed when the parent leaves and express anger over the abandonment when he or she returns.

The atypical styles shown by many of the Romanian youngsters are variations on these basic themes. They include ?atypical insecure,? where the child appears to be taking care of the parent; ?defended coercive,? where the child alternates between defended and coercive styles; and ?insecure other,? a blanket term for ?behavior that is all over the place,? said Chisholm.

On parent questionnaires, the later-adopted children also scored much higher than the other two groups on ?indiscriminate friendliness,? a behavior recently described as a criterion for attachment disorder. These youngsters initiated conversation and tried to cuddle with and kiss strange adults without the caution one might expect from young children, said Chisholm. The behavior is posited to be the result of not having a primary caregiver to form an identity in relation to; to fill the void, these children will grab at anyone who seems friendly.

In addition to looking at when the child was adopted, Chishom also examined two other factors that could influence the children?s attachment patterns: characteristics of the adoptive parents and aspects of the children?s institutional life, such as how long they were in the orphanage and their physical condition at the time of adoption.

Mothers of insecurely attached Romanian children were less educated and of significantly lower socioeconomic status than securely attached children, she found. They also reported more stress than other parents in the sample.

To Chisholm, the finding demonstrates a possible feedback loop, whereby an insecurely attached child doesn?t know how to properly ask for help; the parent who is already at risk becomes more stressed as the child acts out; the child responds poorly to the parents? stress; and the cycle continues.

In addition, Chisholm found that no institutional variable per se predicted whether a child would be insecurely attached. Instead, it appears that an interactional effect is at work, whereby early insecure attachment and later parenting variables combine to exacerbate existing attachment problems, she said.

Who has trouble attaching?

Mary Dozier, PhD, and K. Chase Stovall, PhD, of the University of Delaware, are conducting research that may give added meaning to Chisholm?s findings and those of other attachment researchers.

In a detailed, daily analysis of the interactions of 10 pairs of foster mothers and their infants, they found that youngsters placed in foster care at 8 months or older have the most trouble attaching securely, even if the mother has a secure attachment style. Previous research has posited that a disruption in attachment causes babies the most problems at either 6 months to 8 months, or beginning at 12 months.

The team had foster mothers keep daily diaries of their infants? response to distressing events and how the mothers responded to their distress. They also rated the mothers? parenting styles as autonomous/secure; dismissive; or anxious because of their own unresolved loss or trauma.

The babies?who ranged from age 6 months to 18 months?showed progressively more severe attachment problems the older they were at age of placement. This was the case even when mothers were labelled autonomous/secure.

In addition, Dozier and Stovall found that the children whose mothers responded to their youngsters in nurturing ways under any circumstance?even if the children avoided them or threw tantrums?showed the most secure attachment.

?These mothers? behavior served as a kind of therapy for the youngsters,? Dozier commented.

Child researcher Robert Pianti, PhD, of the University of Virginia, hailed Dozier?s study as ?an experiment that?s been needed for a long time.? Little has been done to intricately assess the daily interactions of nonbirth mothers and infants, or to assess the intersect between early attachment problems and later caretaking styles.

?Her findings show that being a secure figure is not enough,? he said.