Poster #124 - Association found between attachment security and maternal view of developmental skills in a Japanese sample

• In Event: 2-002 - Special Poster Session 05 with Continental Breakfast Reception
  In Poster Session: PS 05 - International Section

Integrative Statement

The controversy surrounding the Japanese Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) in the mid-80’s has apparently discouraged further SSP studies in Japan over three decades. Recently, however, incorporating another validated measure of attachment – the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), the first Japanese AAI-SSP data have successfully shown that attachment security does transmit intergenerationally, supporting the universality assumption of attachment theory, which was previously challenged. To date, however, very few studies have examined associations between attachment security assessed by the SSP and developmental outcomes in Japan. The purpose of this study is to explore how attachment security assessed by the SSP would predict developmental outcomes of Japanese 1-year-olds, 3.5-year-olds, and 6-year-olds longitudinally.
Forty-four Japanese mother-infant dyads from Sapporo participated in the study as a part of a larger Sapporo Longitudinal Study. The dyads came to the lab when the infants were 13 months old to participate in the standard SSP. Mothers were also asked to fill out the “Tsumori Developmental Test” questionnaire – one of the standard developmental tests in Japan to evaluate the performance in everyday activities. The test measures five aspects of infant development; motor activities, cognitive skills, social skills, language skills, and self-care skills. When their children were 3.5 years of age and again six years of age, we asked the mothers to fill out the same “Tsumori Developmental Test” questionnaire. As a follow-up, 34 and 32 mothers responded to the same questionnaire that excludes the motor skills item for their 3.5-year-olds and 6-year-olds, respectively.
The 2-way distribution of SSP (when insecure includes Disorganized (D)) was; 30 secure (68.2%) and 14 insecure (31.8%). The 2-way forced distribution (when B includes D/B) was 33 B (75.0%) and 11 non-B (25.0%). Results from a series of independent t-test showed that secure group scored significantly higher than insecure group in social skills (t=2.041, p=0.048), language skills (t=2.769, p=0.008), and total developmental score (t=2.130, p=0.039). When we compared B vs. non-B, B group scored significantly higher than non-B in social skills (t=2.377, p=0.022) and total developmental score (t=2.430, p=0.019). In 3.5-year-olds, the score of language skills (t=1.948, p=0.060) were higher in B group than in non-B group but t-values narrowly didn’t reach significant level. In 6-year-olds, score of self-care skills (t=2.142, p=0.040) was significantly higher in B group than in non-B group.
These results indicate that attachment security assessed by the SSP predicts certain aspects of infant’s developmental outcome, which further validates the use of the SSP in Japan. The effect of disorganization was not clearly captured, which will be further discussed. The reasons why the effect of attachment security appears to decrease somewhat with maturity will be also discussed. Future studies need to include a larger N and multiple assessments of developmental outcome to further explore the effect of attachment security in Japanese samples.

Authors

• Kiyomi Kondo-Ikemura, Teikyo University
  Presenting Author

• KAZUKO Y BEHRENS, State University of New York Polytechnic Institute
  Non-Presenting Author