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

This study examined the link between mothers' and children's script-like representations of attachment and the role of maternal co-construction skills in facilitating script knowledge in their children. Fifty-nine children recruited from preschools in Bucharest, Romania (age range 4 to 5 years) completed a shortened version of the Attachment Story Completion Task (ASCT) to assess their secure base script knowledge whereas their mother's script knowledge was assessed with the Attachment Script Assessment (ASA). In addition, the mother-child pairs completed the Affect Discussion Task (see Chapter II) to assess mothers' co-construction skills. Mother and child secure base script knowledge was significantly related, as were maternal co-construction skills and child script knowledge. Regression analyses indicated that maternal co-construction skills impacted children's script knowledge above and beyond the effects of maternal script scores.