The “EA Brief”: An Intervention to Improve Emotional Attachment and Emotional Availability (EA)

• In Event: 3-223 - Interventions in Early Childhood: The Central Role of the Parent-Child Relationship

Integrative Statement

Introduction: The Emotional Availability (EA) Intervention is typically a 4-6 week intervention that involves both group-format discussions about attachment history, education about emotional availability in parent-child interactions, as well as mindfulness exercises (Biringen et al., 2010; Biringen et al., 2012; Baker et al., 2015). While not as long as some parenting interventions, the original 4-to-6 week intervention model was not ideal for all populations, particularly for busy parents. It was believed a brief model would help to improve recruitment and to decrease drop out rates due to challenging schedules (Ammerman et al., 2006). The “EA Brief” model requires only committing to one 3-hour workshop, reading of brief materials, a 1-hour of one-on-one coaching of mothers about their emotional availability (using a video-based format and the EA framework), and the receipt of supportive, brief but inspirational text messages (about mindfulness, emotional availability, and emotional attachment) tailored to the Time 1 EA evaluations. The brief intervention was designed to provide “a seed of change” to these families. Because there was no prior experience with the implementation of the EA Brief, the main interest was in conducting a pilot feasibility study, to better understand ease of recruitment, adequacy and satisfaction of the brief delivery, as well as the acceptability of attrition. The goal was to evaluate this brief format first with normative, low-risk populations before trying this brief model with at-risk families. The goal of this study was to determine the extent to which a brief parenting intervention provided the context for helping families to support positive mother-child interactions as well as more optimal mother and child outcomes.

Hypotheses: Mothers will improve in their reported functioning and in their observed emotional availability.

Study population: Participants in this study were middle-income mothers and their children ages 0-3 years of age (N = 25 dyads).

Methods: Participants were filmed via Skype during a 20-minute mother-child free play and completed questionnaires (Time 1) before attending the brief intervention (involving: 3 hours of a group workshop, brief reading materials, one hour of one-on-one coaching, and two weeks of tailored texts) followed by a repeat of the 20-minute Skype interaction and the completion of the same questionnaires (Time 2).

Results: Paired samples t-tests were performed, revealing that mothers reported improvements in their personal well-being (using the Flourishing Scale), reports about the mother-child relationship (using the Emotional Availability Self Report), and observed interactions, particularly the child’s side of the relationship (using the Emotional Availability Scales), from pretest to posttest. Results are discussed in terms of a brief intervention potentially having a role in “planting a seed” for parenting enhancement and child development. Results are also discussed in terms of using the EA Brief as a way to augment existing evidence-based interventions.

Authors

• Zeynep Biringen, Colorado State University
  Presenting Author

• Maren McDonnell, Colorado State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lia Closson, Colorado State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hannah Saunders, Colorado State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Bradley Morse, University of Denver
  Non-Presenting Author

• Michelle Sarche, University of Colorado, Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus
  Non-Presenting Author