Poster #162 - Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up: Exploring Mechanisms of Effectiveness in Community-Based Implementation

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - Prevention and Interventions

Integrative Statement

According to attachment theory, primary caregiver responsiveness is essential for infants’ development of secure attachments (Bowlby, 1969). In particular, the primary caregiver’s ability to serve as a protector during distress may be essential to attachment (Goldberg et al., 1999), and multiple studies have indicated that greater maternal sensitivity to distress in particular is associated with subsequent infant attachment security (Leerkes, 2011; McElwain & Booth-LaForce, 2006). Crying has been identified as an early attachment behavior through which infants communicate distress to their caregivers (Ainsworth, 1964; Bowlby, 1958). As such, parental responses to crying likely play an important role in the development of the attachment relationship.

Because secure infant attachment may be related to a variety of developmental outcomes, including social relatedness, stress regulation, and emotion regulation (Sroufe, 2005), promoting secure attachment is important to early development. Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC; Dozier et al., 2013), an intervention that targets parents’ ability to nurture children when distressed, to follow their children’s leads when not distressed, and to avoid frightening behaviors, has been associated with higher rates of secure attachment in children post-intervention (Bernard et al., 2012). Examining potential mechanisms that contribute to attachment security can inform developmental theory and promote more targeted approaches to intervention.

A diverse community sample of parents and infants were randomly assigned to participate in the 10-session ABC intervention or to a waitlist control group. This sample was high in a variety of risk factors, including financial risk (88.9%), housing risk (58.3%), single parent status (62.5%), and low education (31.9%). The primary outcome measure was infant attachment classification, assessed using the Strange Situation procedure (Ainsworth et al., 1978) at post-intervention. At pre- and post-intervention, parents completed the Infant Crying Questionnaire (ICQ; Leerkes et al., 2010), a 43-item questionnaire about parental thoughts, beliefs, and responses related to infant crying. The ICQ Minimization scale reflects parents’ beliefs that minimize emotional attributions for infants’ crying (Haltigan et al., 2012). We hypothesized that the ABC intervention would lead to reductions in parents’ minimization beliefs, which, in turn, would predict increased likelihood of developing a secure attachment.

Regression analyses using a preliminary sample of 72 parents and infants (we anticipate N = 150 by the time of presentation) indicated significant associations between ABC participation (versus waitlist assignment) and post-intervention ICQ Minimization, controlling for pre-intervention ICQ Minimization, R2 = 0.53, F(2, 69) = 38.63, p < .001, and between post-intervention ICQ Minimization and attachment security, 2(1) = 4.48, p = .034. Using the PROCESS macro for SPSS (Hayes, 2013), the indirect effect was significant, point estimate = 0.21; 95% CI [0.005, 0.6057], suggesting that post-intervention ICQ Minimization mediated the association between ABC intervention and attachment security, controlling for pre-intervention ICQ Minimization. ABC intervention was associated with less self-reported minimization of infants’ distress when crying, which in turn was associated with increased likelihood of secure classification.

These findings suggest parents’ beliefs about their infants’ cries, especially acknowledgement of infant distress, may be an important mechanism through which early attachment-based intervention promotes secure attachment.

Authors

• Laura Perrone, Stony Brook University
  Presenting Author

• Melanie Rodriguez, Stony Brook University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Allison Dash, Power of Two
  Non-Presenting Author

• Steven Imrisek, Stony Brook University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristin Bernard, Stony Brook University
  Non-Presenting Author