Mother-child attachment and adoption. A study of adopted children compared with children growing up in the family

The aim is to study the attachment bond between adopted children and children who grow up in families; hypothesising an insecure attachment in the adopted child; verifying adoption as a protection factor and studying the quality of the attachment to biological and adoptive parents, according to the intergenerational transmission. 30 adopted children, age 4-10 years, adoption time (1-3years) and (above 3years) with the respective mothers are compared with a control group balanced and their mothers. Instruments: children: Human Figure Drawing (Machover 1953), Drawing the Family (Attili 2007), Separation Anxiety Test (Attili 2001), Child Behaviour Check List (Achenbach 1991); mothers: Parental Bonding Instrument (Parker et al.1979), Attachment Style Questionnaire (Fenney et al.1994) and SAT (Attili 2001). Adopted children are more likely to draw in the centre of the sheet and the family. Difficulties are encountered in aggressivity and attention in adopted children. The shorter the adoption time, the more likely it is to encounter problems concerning attention, egocentrism and physical contact. Self-height (HFD) correlates with adoption times. Both groups of mothers show a control pattern for affection; a good level of security, slight difficulty in unease-intimacy for the adoptive mothers. Greater correspondence between types of attachment biological mother-child vs adoptive mother-child.