Author:

Keywords:

Social Sciences, Psychology, Developmental, Psychology, Parent-child attachment, severe or profound intellectual disability, significant developmental delay, behavioural observation, skin conductance, ABILITY CLASSIFICATION-SYSTEM, MULTIPLE DISABILITIES, MATERNAL SENSITIVITY, INTERPRETATION BIAS, ATTACHMENT FIGURES, SUPPORT STAFF, BEHAVIOR, PEOPLE, SCALE, EMOTIONS, Child, Preschool, Emotions, Female, Galvanic Skin Response, Humans, Infant, Infant, Newborn, Intellectual Disability, Male, Object Attachment, Parent-Child Relations, Parents, Severity of Illness Index, Stress, Psychological, 1701 Psychology, 1702 Cognitive Sciences, Developmental & Child Psychology, 5201 Applied and developmental psychology, 5202 Biological psychology, 5203 Clinical and health psychology

Abstract:

The relationships between children with severe or profound intellectual disabilities (ID) and their parents may fulfil attachment functions, such as regulating emotional responses to stress. This study examined the extent to which children with severe or profound ID differentiate between their parents and a stranger as a resource for stress-regulation. A home-based experimental paradigm was conducted and video-recorded in 38 families. Children (1–8 years) were exposed to four naturalistic stressors followed by comfort, randomly provided by the parents or the stranger. Emotional behaviour (arousal and valence) and the skin conductance level were simultaneously recorded. With regard to both emotional behaviour and skin conductance, children significantly differentiated between their parents as attachment figures and the stranger during stress and comfort, despite their impairments on various developmental domains. Behavioural observation and physiology show complementary manifestations of parent-child attachment in this population.