Attachment development in children adopted from China:The role of pre-adoption care and sensitive adoptive parenting
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Published on: September 19, 2019
Chloë Finet1,2, Theodore E A Waters1, Harriet J Vermeer3
1Department of Psychology, New York University - Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Abstract:
The current study examined the attachment development of 92 internationally adopted Chinese girls, focusing on the influence of type of pre-adoption care (institutional versus foster care) and sensitive adoptive parenting. Although the children were more often insecurely attached than non-adopted children 2 and 6 months after adoption (Times 1 and 2, N = 92), they had similar levels of secure base script knowledge (SBS knowledge) as a non-adopted comparison group at age 10 (Time 3, N = 87). Furthermore, concurrently observed sensitive parenting was positively associated with SBS knowledge. Finally, a significant interaction between type of pre-adoption care and early-childhood sensitive parenting indicated that the post-institutionalized children showed a stronger increase in security than the post-foster children when parents were more sensitive.
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