Preliminary Study of a Digital Measure of Attachment for Children from 9 to 12 Years Old

RICHAUD, M. C.; LEMOS, V.; BEI, E.; VARGAS RUBILAR, J.

EC Paediatrics

.ECronicon

Año: 2018 vol. 8 p. 98 - 101

1139-7632

The objective of the present work is to develop an attachment test in a digital form. The child is presented with five conflicting stories that he/she must complete. It is assumed that the unique mode of resolution of the story will identify the mental model of the child´s attachment relationships. Five conflicting stories were prepared with female characters and four with male characters: the first proof story about the difficulty facing an exam, the second about bullying, the third about a bicycle accident, the fourth about feeling sick at a friend´s house, and the fifth about getting lost in a shopping. The test was administered to a sample of 120 children aged 9 to 12, of both sexes, who attended primary schools, in the City of Buenos Aires, individually, and on Android Tablet support. The reliability among judges reaches an agreement of .97 (avoidant attachment), .84 (ambivalent anxious attachment) and .90 (se-cure attachment). Convergent validity analysis between the digital attachment test and the questionnaire by Finzi., et al. [1,2] indicated an r = .489 between secure attachment, according to the Finzi., et al. and the digital test, and r = .633 and r = .480, for avoidant and anxious/ambivalent attachment, respectively, between the two attachment tests. An attachment digital method was developed that has been motivating and natural for children in middle and late childhood. The validity of the test is adequate but it remains to be used with clinical groups.