Validity of the School-age Assessment of Attachment for moderate-risk, rural early adolescents

• Published in: Clinical child psychology and psychiatry 2015-07, Vol.20 (3), p.366-380
• Main Authors: Kidwell, Shari L, Sizemore, Kayla M, Qu, Jin, Fugate, Katelyn M, Deaton, Michelle S, Blevins, Morgan D
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Age; Attachment; Caregiver burden; Caregivers; Child; Child Behavior; Child, Preschool; Children & youth; Classification; Conflict resolution; Depression - psychology; Evaluation; Family conflict; Female; Helplessness; Humans; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Object Attachment; Parent-Child Relations; Parents & parenting; Preschool children; Psychological Tests; Psychological Trauma - psychology; Questionnaires; Reproducibility of Results; Risk assessment; Rural communities; Rural Population; Self report; Stress, Psychological - psychology; Validity; Youth
• ISSN: 1359-1045; 1461-7021
• DOI: 10.1177/1359104515591227

Introduction: This study provides evidence of validity of the School-age Assessment of Attachment (SAA) through longitudinal comparison with the Preschool Assessment of Attachment (PAA) and with concurrent attachment assessments and measures of risk and parenting. Determining which assessment had the greatest validity with this moderate-risk sample would be of benefit to those working with troubled young people and their families. Hypotheses: Children’s SAA classifications were expected to correspond to their PAA, a behavioral attachment assessment, parenting, and risk. An attachment questionnaire was predicted to not accurately indicate children’s risk status. Design: The design was an 8-year longitudinal follow-up of rural Appalachian American preschoolers. Method: The participants were 21 children and their caregivers. The PAA was completed at age 4. The SAA, a self-report questionnaire, and a parent–child conflict resolution task were completed at age 12. Parents completed assessments of depression, trauma, stress, and perceptions of helplessness. Results: The PAA was related to the SAA and the dyadic behavioral task. The SAA was consistently associated with measures of parenting and family risk. The attachment questionnaire performed poorly for children with higher risk status, suggesting more (not less) sensitive and responsive parenting.