Children's Representations of Attachment and Positive Teacher–Child Relationships

This study was designed to explore whether children's representations of attachment contribute to the co-construction of positive teacher–child relationships. An assessment of verbal intelligence was included as a predictor on the assumption that teachers might perceive themselves as having better relationships with more verbally competent children. Participants were 52 children from two pre-schools, in the district of Lisbon. The Attachment Story Completion Task (ASCT) was used to assess children's attachment security. The PCV-P (a scale developed in portuguese language) was used to describe teacher–child relationships through teachers' ratings of child secure base behavior and emotion regulation and the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI-R) was used to access verbal skills. Bivariate correlations showed that the teachers' rating of child secure base behavior was significantly associated with both child attachment security and verbal IQ. In a multiple regression analysis, the overall model R(2) was significant, as was the interaction term showing a moderating effect of attachment security on the relation between verbal IQ and teachers' ratings of secure base. The results suggest that co-construction of a close attachment-relevant relationship with teachers in early childhood is, in part, a function of the security in the context of parent-child attachment, but also of child verbal development.