Construction of a digital instrument for the evaluation of attachment in children from 9 to 12 years old

RICHAUD, M. C.; LEMOS VIVIANA; VARGAS RUBILAR, J.

Montreal

Congreso; 28th International Congress of Applied Psychology; 2018

International Association of Applied Psychology

Between 4-9 years, the most used methodology to explore the internal models of attachment has been the incomplete stories. From the age of 9, this procedure begins to be unattractive. Objective: To build an instrument of incomplete stories in digital game format, more friendly for older children. In this modality, the dolls are presented in two dimensions and their movement is synchronized with a narration of the story made by a "standard" voice. Once the story is over, the child is invited by the software to finalize the story. The audio and video are recorded by a webcam. The results of the administration of categorical and dimensional questionnaires and of the representational technique to 30 children, 9-12 years, converge in the same diagnosis, although the representational approach allows a greater precision in the analysis of the different aspects of the primary bond.Therefor the new instrument has shown satisfactory convergent validity with other types of techniques, and reliability among judges with respect to the scoring system, based on qualitative aspects such as mentalization, narrative coherence, etc., and to the children evaluation. Rational Between 4-9 years, the most used methodology to explore the internal models of attachment has been the incomplete stories. From the age of 9, this procedure begins to be unattractive.Objective: To build an instrument of incomplete stories in digital game format, more friendly for older children.Methods In this modality, the dolls are presented in two dimensions and their movement is synchronized with a narration of the story made by a "standard" voice. Once the story is over, the child is invited by the software to finalize the story. The audio and video are recorded by a webcam.Results The results of the administration of categorical and dimensional questionnaires and of the representational technique to 30 children, 9-12 years, converge in the same diagnosis, although the representational approach allows a greater precision in the analysis of the different aspects of the primary bond. The reliability between judges was satisfactory.Discussion A new technique with digital modality has been constructed to assess attachment in older children. It has shown convergent validity with other types of techniques and reliability among judges with respect to the scoring system, based on qualitative aspects such as mentalization, narrative coherence, etc., and to the children evaluation.Impact: to evaluate the primary bonds in children through an instrument with ecological validity, given the importance of these for mental health of people, has a strong impact on the programs of health promotion based on early diagnosis.