VI. INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION OF SECURE BASE SCRIPT KNOWLEDGE: THE ROLE OF MATERNAL CO-CONSTRUCTION SKILLS

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Attachment Theory
• Child Psychology

Background:

• Attachment representations are crucial for socio-emotional development.
• Maternal co-construction skills may play a key role in transmitting attachment knowledge.
• Understanding the interplay between maternal and child script knowledge is vital.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between mothers' and children's script-like representations of attachment.
• To examine the role of maternal co-construction skills in children's secure base script knowledge.
• To determine if maternal co-construction skills predict child script knowledge independently of maternal script knowledge.

Main Methods:

• Fifty-nine mother-child pairs (children aged 4-5 years) participated.
• Attachment script knowledge was assessed using the Attachment Story Completion Task (ASCT) for children and the Attachment Script Assessment (ASA) for mothers.
• Maternal co-construction skills were evaluated using the Affect Discussion Task.

Main Results:

• A significant positive correlation was found between mothers' and children's secure base script knowledge.
• Maternal co-construction skills were significantly related to child script knowledge.
• Regression analyses revealed that maternal co-construction skills uniquely contributed to children's script knowledge, beyond maternal script scores.

Conclusions:

• Maternal co-construction skills are a significant factor in the development of children's attachment script knowledge.
• Collaborative discussions between mothers and children facilitate the acquisition of secure base script knowledge.
• Interventions aimed at enhancing maternal co-construction skills could benefit children's attachment representations.