Attachment Relationships among Children with Aggressive Behavior Problems: The Role of Disorganized Early Attachment Patterns.

Reviews recent attachment-related studies of early aggression. Longitudinal attachment studies indicate that risk factors identified in cross-sectional studies of aggressive school-age children, such as family adversity, parental hostility, parental depression, and child cognitive deficits, are already evident in infancy and predictive of later aggression, before the onset of coercive child behavior. These risk factors are associated with other attachment problems. (KW)