Observational Assessments of
Attachment and Temperament in
Young Children with Williams
Syndrome: Toward a Profile of
Early Socio-Emotional
Functioning
-
1
Boston University School of Medicine, Laboratory of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, United States
Background/Purpose: Anecdotal evidence, parental reports and observational data from free-play sessions suggest that children with Williams syndrome (WS) show a strong propensity to approach strangers and indiscriminate friendliness (Doyle, Bellugi, & Korenberg, 2004; Jones et al., 2000). A pattern of indiscriminate friendliness toward strangers has been reported in children who failed to form preferential attachment relations due to unusual child-rearing circumstances, such as being raised in orphanages with multiple and inconsistent caregivers. In typical development in the family context, the emergence of focused attachments is marked by the appearance of separation protest and stranger anxiety, while the absence of either may be interpreted as a potential symptom of attachment disorders (Zeanah & Fox, 2004). In this study we used a combination of laboratory based assessments and parental interview/questionnaires to examine possible contributions of attachment relations and temperamental characteristics to the development of social behavior in young children with WS.
Methods: Fifteen children with WS ages 2.11 to 5.10 years, 15 children with Down syndrome (DS) matched on chronological and mental age with the WS group, and 20 agematched typically developing children (TD) and their primary caregivers were administered the preschool attachment Strange Situation Procedure (SSP; Cassidy & Marvin, 1995), followed by 9 episodes from the Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery (LabTAB; Goldsmith et al., 1999), designed to elicit behavioral and emotional reactions to novel objects and people, social and nonsocial fear, pleasure/exuberance, etc. Qualitative coding of attachment into standard categories (B, A, C, D) was done by certified coders, while a detailed coding of behavioral observations using the Noldus Observer program was conducted to obtain quantitative measures of social-interactive behaviors (e.g., duration of eye contact and proximity with mother/stranger, affective expressions, activity level, style of interactive behavior/play type, and indices of specific separation/reunionrelated behaviors such as reaction to mother’s leaving, greeting, waiting behavior). Scoring behaviors in LabTAB episodes followed standard instructions.
Results: Qualitative coding of the SSP showed 87% of the WS group, 93% of the DS group and 76% of the TD children to be securely attached. Groups were similar on the majority of quantitative measures of interactive behaviors; However children with WS spent proportionally more time ‘very close’ to the social partner than the DS group, p< .05. Both the WS and DS children showed proportionally more eye-contact with mother across episodes compared to TD controls (p<.05), but groups did not differ significantly in looking time to the ‘stranger’. Significant group differences emerged in the LabTAB episodes that elicit reactions to unfamiliar people and objects: children with WS showed less fear and more approach to both social and nonsocial fear-eliciting stimuli than controls (p <.05).
Discussion: These results suggest that the pattern of relatively indiscriminate friendliness toward strangers shown by children with WS is not related to the absence of focused attachment bonds or characteristics of the child’s rearing environment. Differential responses to fear-eliciting situations revealed a complex pattern of temperamental tendencies in the three groups, which cannot be unequivocally divided according to the social or nonsocial nature of the stimulus or context/event. Findings will be discussed in relation to defining the profile of socialemotional functioning in children with WS, stressing the need for a multi-method investigational approach to advance our understanding of the developmental roots of hypersociability in WS.
Conference:
12th International Professional Conference on Williams Syndrome, Garden Grove,CA, United States, 13 Jul - 14 Jul, 2008.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation
Topic:
SESSION 7: Social Cognition and Social Phenotype of Williams Syndrome
Citation:
Skwerer
DP,
Lindeke
M,
Ogrodnik
K,
Ciciolla
L and
Flusberg
HT
(2009). Observational Assessments of
Attachment and Temperament in
Young Children with Williams
Syndrome: Toward a Profile of
Early Socio-Emotional
Functioning.
Conference Abstract:
12th International Professional Conference on Williams Syndrome.
doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.07.025
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Received:
30 Apr 2009;
Published Online:
30 Apr 2009.
*
Correspondence:
D. P Skwerer, Boston University School of Medicine, Laboratory of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Boston, United States, dplesas@bu.edu