Reviews recent research and offers suggestions for adults who wish to understand and help young children as they deal with separation, loss or death. (ED)

Article investigated the effects of inanimate stimuli upon the learning behaviors of children as well as the presence of their mothers in a learning environment. (RK)

A study concerning the mother's mental representation of herself as a caregiver focused on: (1) a conceptual framework developed for the purpose of describing and explaining internal working models of caregiving; and (2) efforts to define caregivers' representations of content and process that seem to be associated with attachment insecurity.…

This journal issue presents an overview of mother-child interaction during the first year of the child's life. Contents of the first section, which concern the development of the mother-child relationship, focus on the concept of the maternal instinct, mother and child during intrauterine life, birth of the child, the postnatal period (including…

John Bowlby's theory of affectional bonding and the reformulated learned helplessness theory of depression were integrated into a multivariate model in order to expand the breadth of current attributional theories of depression. This retrospective study focused upon the quality of parent-child relations, the types of discipline parents employed,…

This study describes traditional Korean child rearing and its relation to personality, social development, and their implications for education. Topics addressed include the family structure, traditional value orientation, the prenatal period, patterns of interaction in infancy, the baby as a vulnerable being, the baby as a spiritual being, the…

The recent increase in emphasis on the impact of early childhood experience on subsequent human development constitutes a change in the conceptual framework of the study of early childhood development. Anyone who is interested in prevention and intervention needs to be aware of the particulars of the debate on the strengths and weaknesses of the…

This paper reviews research on the relationship between infant temperament and maternal caregiving, and discusses conflicting findings. After emphasizing the central importance of independent measures in tests of interactions between temperament and caregiving, the paper reports two studies designed to clarify the relationship. In Study One, 48…

A major area of concern in divorced families is compliance with child support payments. Aspects of the former spouse relationship that are predictive of compliance with court-ordered payment of child support were investigated in a sample of 58 divorced persons all of whom either paid or received child support. Structured interviews and…

This study compared three ways of analyzing individual mother-infant attachment behaviors in order to test the hypothesis that success in the search for stable individual differences in attachment behavior is in part a function of the level at which behavior individuality is assessed. Fifty infants were videotaped in the Ainsworth and Wittig…

This article illustrates the feasibility of using the public agency caseworker (even if inexperienced) in a treatment role to deal with a child's adjustment to separation. (CS)

Children ages 30 to 34 months, assessed at 18 months for security of attachment and categorized as anxious/avoidant, anxious/resistant, or securely attached, were observed exploring with their mothers in a large-scale laboratory space. (Quality of attachment was assessed by means of Ainsworth's standard strange-situation procedure.) After learning…

An informal analysis of the concept of interpersonal commitment as it relates to parents, this study includes an examination of the characteristics of this commitment, and a consideration of possible effects of this commitment on both children and their culture. An introductory overview of the study is provided in Chapter I. In Chapter II issues…

Despite recent widespread claims about the importance of early contact for facilitating mother-infant bonding, the effects of early contact have not been convincingly demonstrated. Methodological and procedural difficulties, contributing to a "Hawthorne" effect, may account for the pattern of inconsistent and unclear findings to date.…

This paper reviews the literature on attachment, presents a study of child-teacher attachment, and discusses child-teacher attachment as a secondary relationship influenced by the prototype bonding between mother and child. The literature review traces the development of psychoanalytic thought regarding the mother-child relationship and examines…