New perspectives in the study of adult-child bond: Attachment, dyadic emotional availability and the Emotional Availability Scales (EAS)

The paper aims to introduce the reader to the conceptual frame of emotional availability and to the Emotional Availability Scales (EAS). The term refers to the capacity of the dyad to share an emotional connection in the context of a functional and mutual fulfilling relationship (Biringen & Easterbrooks, 2012). When an emotional available connection is present within the dyad the partners are able to enjoy together, to express genuinely positive emotions and to downregulate negative affects. The construct has a dyadic nature and simultaneously takes into account the intervention of both partners and their reciprocal influences. The theoretical background of emotional availability finds its main contributions in attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969, 1973; Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978), in the theories of emotions (Emde, 1980; Mahler, Pine & Bergman, 1975) and in systemic and transactional theories (Sameroff & Fiese, 2000). The construct has been operationalized by Biringen (2008) through the EAS, six scales aimed at assessing the global affective quality of adult-child interactive exchanges. Four scales take into account the contribution of the adult (sensitivity, structuring, nonintrusiveness, nonhostility) while the other two focus on the child (responsiveness, involvement of the adult). The EAS have been well validated through the application in different countries and to different samples, clinical, non clinical and with disabilities. As expected, given their theoretical background, they showed associations with quality of infant-mother attachment, adult attachment representations but also with other features of adult-child relationships. The flexibility of the system to different ages and to different settings makes the EAS a useful assessment tool that can be used both in research and in clinical settings. Special attention in the paper is given to the comparison of emotional availability with attachment theory. The constructs show in fact similarities, such as the importance given to the presence of a sensitive adult, but differences as well. For instance, while the emotional availability conceptual frame focuses more explicitly on emotions, both negative and positive, attachment theory seems to pay more attention to more specific features of the dyad, such as the child’s need for protection and research of physical proximity. Moreover, while emotional availability evaluates interactions, and therefore something that could be more changeable in time, the attachment perspective evaluates a quality of the infant considered to be more stable, although dynamic, i.e. the attachment bond. In this way both paradigms focus on adult-child relationships but highlighting different aspects that taken into account together could lead to a better comprehension of the affective and relational development of the individual. Suggestions for an integrated use of the two theories, and consequent implications, are discussed at the end of the paper.