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We examined the relative contribution of genetic, shared environmental and non-shared environmental factors to the covariance between parental sensitivity and limit-setting observed twice in a longitudinal study using a child-based twin design. Parental sensitivity and parental limit-setting were observed in 236 parents with each of their same-sex toddler twin children (Mage = 3.8 years; 58% monozygotic). Bivariate behavioral genetic models indicated substantial effects of similar shared environmental factors on parental sensitivity and limit-setting and on the overlap within sensitivity and limit-setting across 1 year. Moderate child-driven genetic effects were found for parental limit-setting in year 1 and across 1 year. Genetic child factors contributing to explaining the variance in limit-setting over time were the same, whereas shared environmental factors showed some overlap.

The evidence for negative influences of maternal stress during pregnancy on child cognition remains inconclusive. This study tested the association between maternal prenatal stress and child intelligence in 4,251 mother–child dyads from a multiethnic population-based cohort in the Netherlands. A latent factor of prenatal stress was constructed, and child IQ was tested at age 6 years. In Dutch and Caribbean participants, prenatal stress was not associated with child IQ after adjustment for maternal IQ and socioeconomic status. In other ethnicities no association was found; only in the Moroccan/Turkish group a small negative association between prenatal stress and child IQ was observed. These results suggest that prenatal stress does not predict child IQ, except in children from less acculturated minority groups.

This paper serves as an Introduction by the co-editors to a Special Section of Child Development entitled "Meta-analysis and Individual Participant Data Synthesis in Child Development." First, the co-editors emphasize that the work contained in the Special Section was selected to highlight the value of meta-analysis not only for synthesizing study-level published and unpublished data but also as regards its ability to support programmatic, replicable, and cumulative developmental science. Second, the co-editors identify some of the cross-cutting themes of the papers featured in the Special Section, including the value of meta-analysis for summarizing and interrogating the full range of developmental science and in potentially transforming conventional wisdom in given domains along with the importance of recent innovations for improving standard meta-analytic practice-particularly in the context of developmental questions. Emphasized especially are contributions to the Special Section that extend classic meta-analysis to individual participant data synthesis.

This meta-analytic review examines the association between attachment and internalizing symptomatology during childhood, and compares the strength of this association with that for externalizing symptomatology. Based on 42 independent samples (N = 4,614), the association between insecurity and internalizing symptoms was small, yet significant (d = 0.15, CI 0.06~0.25) and not moderated by assessment age of internalizing problems. Avoidance, but not resistance (d = 0.03, CI -0.11~0.17) or disorganization (d = 0.08, CI -0.06~0.22), was significantly associated with internalizing symptoms (d = 0.17, CI 0.03~0.31). Insecurity and disorganization were more strongly associated with externalizing than internalizing symptoms. Discussion focuses on the significance of attachment for the development of internalizing versus externalizing symptomatology.

This study demonstrates the effectiveness of the KiVa antibullying program using a large sample of 8,237 youth from Grades 4-6 (10-12 years). Altogether, 78 schools were randomly assigned to intervention (39 schools, 4,207 students) and control conditions (39 schools, 4,030 students). Multilevel regression analyses revealed that after 9 months of implementation, the intervention had consistent beneficial effects on 7 of the 11 dependent variables, including self- and peer-reported victimization and self-reported bullying. The results indicate that the KiVa program is effective in reducing school bullying and victimization in Grades 4-6. Despite some evidence against school-based interventions, the results suggest that well-conceived school-based programs can reduce victimization.

Contains fulltext : 51958.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) This study on sensitivity and attachment included 55 toddlers and their parents. Samples included children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), mental retardation, language delay, and typical development. Children were diagnosed at 4 years of age. Two years before diagnosis, attachment was assessed with the Strange Situation procedure, and parental sensitivity and child involvement during free play were assessed with the Emotional Availability Scale. Parents of children with ASD were equally sensitive as parents of children without ASD, but their children showed more attachment disorganization and less child involvement. More sensitive parents had more secure children, but only in the group without ASD. Less severe autistic symptoms in the social domain predicted more attachment security. Autism challenges the validity of attachment theory.

Three studies examined associations between early child care and child outcomes among families different from those in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Early Child Care Research Network study. Results suggest that quality is an important influence on children's development and may be an important moderator of the amount of time in care. Thus, the generalizability of the NICHD findings may hinge on the context in which those results were obtained. These studies, conducted in three national contexts, with different regulatory climates, ranges of child care quality, and a diversity of family characteristics, suggest a need for more complete estimates of how both quality and quantity of child care may influence a range of young children's developmental outcomes.

This meta-analytic review examines the association between attachment and internalizing symptomatology during childhood, and compares the strength of this association with that for externalizing symptomatology. Based on 42 independent samples (N = 4,614), the association between insecurity and internalizing symptoms was small, yet significant (d = 0.15, CI 0.06~0.25) and not moderated by assessment age of internalizing problems. Avoidance, but not resistance (d = 0.03, CI -0.11~0.17) or disorganization (d = 0.08, CI -0.06~0.22), was significantly associated with internalizing symptoms (d = 0.17, CI 0.03~0.31). Insecurity and disorganization were more strongly associated with externalizing than internalizing symptoms. Discussion focuses on the significance of attachment for the development of internalizing versus externalizing symptomatology.

This study demonstrates the effectiveness of the KiVa antibullying program using a large sample of 8,237 youth from Grades 4-6 (10-12 years). Altogether, 78 schools were randomly assigned to intervention (39 schools, 4,207 students) and control conditions (39 schools, 4,030 students). Multilevel regression analyses revealed that after 9 months of implementation, the intervention had consistent beneficial effects on 7 of the 11 dependent variables, including self- and peer-reported victimization and self-reported bullying. The results indicate that the KiVa program is effective in reducing school bullying and victimization in Grades 4-6. Despite some evidence against school-based interventions, the results suggest that well-conceived school-based programs can reduce victimization.

This study addresses the extent to which insecure and disorganized attachments increase risk for externalizing problems using meta-analysis. From 69 samples (N = 5,947), the association between insecurity and externalizing problems was significant, d = 0.31 (95% CI: 0.23, 0.40). Larger effects were found for boys (d = 0.35), clinical samples (d = 0.49), and from observation-based outcome assessments (d = 0.58). Larger effects were found for attachment assessments other than the Strange Situation. Overall, disorganized children appeared at elevated risk (d = 0.34, 95% CI: 0.18, 0.50), with weaker effects for avoidance (d = 0.12, 95% CI: 0.03, 0.21) and resistance (d = 0.11, 95% CI: −0.04, 0.26). The results are discussed in terms of the potential significance of attachment for mental health.

In a sample of 157 monozygotic and dizygotic twins, genetic and environmental influences on infant attachment and temperament were quantified. Only unique environmental or error components could explain the variance in disorganized versus organized attachment as assessed in the Ainsworth Strange Situation Procedure. For secure versus nonsecure attachment, 52% of the variance in attachment security was explained by shared environment, and 48% of the variance was explained by unique environmental factors and measurement error. The role of genetic factors in attachment disorganization and attachment security was negligible. Genetic factors explained 77% of the variance in temperamental reactivity, and unique environmental factors and measurement error explained 23%. Differences in temperamental reactivity were not associated with attachment concordance.

75 infants (mean age 15 months) were observed 3 times in the Strange Situation with their professional caregivers, mothers, and fathers. Sensitivity of these attachment figures to the infant's signals during free play, as well as a number of day-care characteristics, were assessed. Attachment classification distribution of infant-caregiver dyads did not differ significantly from infant-mother or infant-father attachment classification distributions. The quality of infant-caregiver attachment was independent of both infant-mother and infant-father attachments. About 10% of the infants had 3 insecure attachments. Professional caregivers observed with more than 1 infant did not have similar types of attachment classifications to all infants with whom they were observed. Infants who were securely attached to their professional caregivers spent more hours per week in day-care, and came from a middle-class background. Their caregivers appeared to be younger and more sensitive during free play than caregivers with whom the infants developed an insecure relationship.

This meta-analysis included 66 studies (N = 4,176) on parental antecedents of attachment security. The question addressed was whether maternal sensitivity is associated with infant attachment security, and what the strength of this relation is. It was hypothesized that studies more similar to Ainsworth's Baltimore study (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978) would show stronger associations than studies diverging from this pioneering study. To create conceptually homogeneous sets of studies, experts divided the studies into 9 groups with similar constructs and measures of parenting. For each domain, a meta-analysis was performed to describe the central tendency, variability, and relevant moderators. After correction for attenuation, the 21 studies (N = 1,099) in which the Strange Situation procedure in nonclinical samples was used, as well as preceding or concurrent observational sensitivity measures, showed a combined effect size of r(1,097) = .24. According to Cohen's (1988) conventional criteria, the association is moderately strong. It is concluded that in normal settings sensitivity is an important but not exclusive condition of attachment security. Several other dimensions of parenting are identified as playing an equally important role. In attachment theory, a move to the contextual level is required to interpret the complex transactions between context and sensitivity in less stable and more stressful settings, and to pay more attention to nonshared environmental influences.

In our meta-analysis on sensitivity and attachment, studies on the role of the father in the development of infant attachment were excluded. In this rejoinder to our discussants, we present new meta-analytic evidence on the association between paternal sensitivity and infant-father attachment (combined effect size r[544] = .13; k = 8 studies; N = 546 families), and on the association between infant-mother and infant-father attachment (overall correlation phi = .17; k = 14 studies; N = 950). Combining the findings from several earlier meta-analyses, we present a data-based model of attachment within the family system.

In this meta-analysis of 34 clinical studies on attachment the hypothesis is tested that maternal problems such as mental illness lead to more deviating attachment classification distributions than child problems such as deafness. A correspondence analysis on 21 North American studies with normal subjects produced a baseline against which the clinical samples could be evaluated. Separate analyses were carried out on studies containing the traditional A, B, C classifications and on studies that also included the recently discovered D or A/C category. Results show that groups with a primary identification of maternal problems show attachment classification distributions highly divergent from the normal distributions, whereas groups with a primary identification of child problems show distributions that are similar to the distributions of normal samples. The introduction of the D or A/C classifications (about 15% in normal samples) reveals an overrepresentation of D or A/C in the child problem groups, but the resulting distribution still is much closer to the normal distributions compared to the samples with maternal problems. In clinical samples, the mother appears to play a more important role than the child in shaping the quality of the infant-mother attachment relationship.

VAN IJZENDOORN, MARINUs H., and KROONENBERG, PIETER M. Cross-cultural Patterns of Attachment: A Meta-Analysis of the Strange Situation. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1988, 59, 147-156. Crosscultural research using Ainsworth's Strange Situation tends to rely on incomplete information and to concentrate on individual rather than aggregated samples. In this study, a wider perspective is taken by examining almost 2,000 Strange Situation classifications obtained in 8 different countries. Differences and similarities between distributions in classifications of samples are investigated using correspondence analysis. Aggregation of samples per country and continent allowed for a firmer empirical basis for cross-cultural analysis. Substantial intracultural differences were established; in a number of instances, samples from 1 country resembled those in other countries more than they did each other. The data also suggest a pattern of cross-cultural differences, in which A classifications emerge as relatively more prevalent in Western European countries and C classifications as relatively more frequent in Israel and Japan. Intracultural variation was nearly 1.5 times the crosscultural variation.

This meta‐analytic review examines the association between early attachment (assessed at 1–5 years) and child temperament (assessed at birth–12 years), and compares the strength of this association with recently documented meta‐analytic associations between early attachment and social competence, externalizing behavior, and internalizing symptoms. Based on 109 independent samples (N = 11,440) of diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, temperament was weakly associated with attachment (in)security (d = .14, CI [0.08, 0.19]) but modestly associated with resistant attachment (d = .30, CI [0.21, 0.40]). Temperament was not significantly associated with avoidant (d = .10, CI [−0.02, 0.19]) or disorganized (d = .11, CI [−0.03, 0.25]) attachment. Across developmental domains, early attachment security was more strongly associated with social competence and externalizing behaviors than internalizing symptoms and temperament.