Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online 2002-09
School competence in young adolescence: Links to early attachment relationships beyond concurrent self-perceived competence and representations of relationships
Predictive associations of infant attachment to mothers and fathers with later school
functioning, beyond the contribution of contemporaneous representations of
relationships and circumstances of caregiving, were examined in 66 young adolescents
who were raised in infancy in Israeli kibbutzim with collective sleeping. The
Strange Situation Procedure was used to evaluate early attachment to mother and
father, the Separation Anxiety Test was used to assess contemporaneous
representation of relationships, and teachers’ reports evaluated school
functioning. Circumstances of caregiving included parental reports of quality of
marital relations and a change from collective sleeping to home sleeping for
children. Results showed that infant attachment to mother, but not to father,
contributed significant additional variance to the prediction of
children’s scholastic skills and emotional maturity beyond the
contribution of concurrent representations of relationships and changes in
circumstances of caregiving. The results support the secure base construct as an
organising concept of longitudinal investigations of attachment.
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