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2 attachment theory - Lecture notes 2

Child Development And Learning (Flinders University)

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LECTURE 2 – ATTACHEMENT THEORY

Key messages:
- Early experiences through relationships with our caregivers shape the development of our brains and can
have lifelong impacts.
- All development occurs within context of relationship
- The foundation for using words and later literacy begins before birth
- Building a solid and trusting relationship with mothers/parents is a key to our success when working with a
family.
- Supporting a parent’s ability to be with their child and in tune with their needs should be a first step in our
therapeutic involvement.

“The core features of emotional development include the ability to identify and understand one’s own feelings, to
accurately read and comprehend emotional states in others, to manage strong emotions and their expression in a
constructive manner, to regulate one’s own behaviour, to develop empathy for others and to establish and sustain
relationships.”
“Emotional development is actually built into the architecture of young children’s brains in response to their
individual personal experiences and the influences of the environment.”
“Emotional experiences of newborns and young infants occur most commonly during periods of interaction with a
caregiver”
When feelings are not well managed, thinking can be impaired

“infants are born with motives in their complex brains that lead them to learn through communicating about
intentions, interests, and feelings with trusted companions and to interpret with them a common reality.”

The brain changes in a “use-dependant” way. Physical connections between neurons and synaptic connections
increase and strengthen through repetition or with through disuse. Each brain adapts uniquely to the unique set of
stimuli and experiences of each child’s world. Traumatic events will result in altered neural systems – trauma effects
people’s brains.

KEY MESSAGE: the caregiving relationship between a parent and the child has a profound impact on healthy
development.

From video:
- Parts of the brain for memory etc. that are shut down by cortisol (stress hormone – initiates fight or flights,
corrosive to bodily systems), don’t develop well if the child is always stressed.
- If a child is continually stressed. The thinking parts of the brain are pruned and they become stuck in the
emotional part, viewing every situation as potentially harmful.

A child is most likely to reach their potential if they experience consistent, predictable, enriched and stimulating
interactions in the context of attentive and nurturing relationships.
Predictability: e.g. When in the presence of a parents with drug issues, they are unable to predict whether the
parents will be there for them or respond well to them.

Lack of consistent and enriched experiences in early childhood can result in delays in motor, language, social and
cognitive development. May also show mental and physical health issues (more susceptible to chronic disease
because of high cortisol levels), addictive behaviours which effect cognition, education levels and employment.

“All its experience appears to need forming by learning, and to depend on the support of an affectionate parent.”
“Infant human beings imitate other humans, not just to act like them, but to enter into a communicative and
cooperative relationship with them by some transfer of the feeling of body action.”

Developing a sense of self:

the child develops a sense of self through the eyes of and the relationship with the parent. This sense of self is laid
down in infancy and becomes an unconscious truth.

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Intersubjectivity (self-and-other awareness): a concept about the exchange of meaning. Infants understand that
their own thoughts and feelings can be shared and they understand the thoughts and desires of others. The chid
understands that the mother has a shared experience with him, a key factor in language development.
- E.g. If mum is blowing bubbles for the infant for their enjoyment and says “bubbles”, the child realises that
the word bubbles has a meaning that both the child and the parents are experiencing at the same time. They
are both talking about the same thing at the same time.
“The infant is born with awareness specifically receptive to subjective states in other persons.”

Attachment: “infants develop and display attachment behaviour in their primary relationship in order to receive
protection and comfort in times of distress.” Children develop expectations, i.e. representations of their interactions
with primary caregivers which serve as guides for further relationships.
- Attachment experiences provide a road map for how to respond to stress and our need for comfort.
- These memories are laid down neurologically, become hard wired and come back at times of vulnerability
and are acted upon.
- This hard wiring becomes predisposition that can be altered with effort/therapy over time
- Attachment memory is procedural, not memory based.

The circle of security: a model for explaining

children’s behaviour and understanding what is going
on for parents and children and their relationship. It
shows us that children need opportunities to safely
explore the world around them AND manage their
emotions with the help from adults in their lives.
- Provides a secure base for exploration
encourages a child to notice their skills and
abilities to interact with the world. The child
learns that they can be masterful in their
environment.
- Provides a safe haven: through providing
comfort, delight or acceptance when a child has a powerful emotional experience, the child learns that
feelings are not overwhelming and can be managed and understood.
Explaining how the child’s emotional needs are crucial to all other learning.
Balance between going out to explore and coming back in to have comfort and connections

In speech pathology: you might have a child that tests the authority by jumping on the child, the speech path needs
to take charge.

Four attachment styles:

- Secure/optimal: child understands what is going on and even if the parents stuffs up, they can understand it
was a mistake and there is a repair made.
- Insecure: Avoidant: parents don’t have capacity to be present. Children pick up feeling like there is no
internal intention of caregiver to know them. Some experience that there is “no one to know”. Look at the
world as if it were only physical, one plane of existence, no mental plane. Avoids feeling
- Insecure: Ambivalent: the child’s internal state becomes confused because of the reaction of the parent to its
needs.
e.g. when the parent is nervous and doubts their ability to be a good parent, the child is just hungry but the
parent becomes anxious. This means that the child then becomes anxious just because they were hungry.
Hunger gets neurologically connect (mirror neurons) to anxiety.
- Insecure: Disorganised classification – child doesn’t know whether the parents will be there for them. The
child does not seeing any answer for what is happening. When the parent in the source of terror: one part of
the brain says go toward attachment figure, but the other part says move away from source of terror. When
the parent looks terrified themselves, the child also becomes terrified via mirror neurons. Cannot control
emotion. No separation between impulse and action. Inability to understand other people, trouble having
intimate relationships. May misinterpret other people’s actions. E.g. Mirror neuron system automatically
interprets a raised hand as being struck, develops constant vigilance.

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Mirror neurons: those that help us learn how to do things. Help us to reflect on what someone’s is doing. Not
functioning well in ASD. Essential in developing empathy because we are able to understand what is happening in
someone else’s mind.

RELEVANCE TO SPEECH:
We must consider the child’s development within the context of the parent-child relationship.
Supporting the parents ability to be with their child and in tune with their needs should be a first step in our therapy.

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