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Attachment Relationships in Early Childhood

            It is clear that there are indeed possibilities for both positive and negative consequences to arise from early childhood attachments. It most be noted that these consequences can be either short term or long term and that it is possible to reverse certain negative consequences whilst others are likely to be irreversible.
             A variety of research has suggested that there is a critical period, or sensitive period when forming attachments in early childhood. Bowlby (1969) argued that this critical period ends between around one and three years of age and that after that it would not be possible to form a strong attachment to the mother or indeed any other person. Klaus and Kennell (1976) investigated into this by comparing the progress of two groups of infants. One group had routine contact with their mothers during regular feeding sessions whereas the other group had extended contact both over the first three days of life. One month later the mothers returned to the hospital and it was found that more bonding had occurred with the extended contact group than the routine contact group. Even one year later the extended mothers group seemed to have a closer attachment then the other group. This therefore shows the importance of skin-to-skin contact in this critical/sensitive period and that ensuring the mother bonds well to the child in this period can have positive effects in terms of the strength of the attachment.
             Mary Ainsworth (1970) developed a study known as the Strange Situation, which showed how there are three different main types of attachments. This study involved a American children being placed a room with his/her mother with a number of situations taking place including the mother leaving the child alone and a stranger entering room. The idea was to see how close the child was to his/her mother and to measure the infant's attachment type. It was found that about 70% of children had the secure attachment type (the infant becomes distressed when the caregiver leaves and immediately seeks contact when caregiver returns), 10% were resistant (the infant is insecure in the presence of the caregiver and becomes distressed when the caregiver leaves).


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