Executive functioning deficits in disorganized attachment

While previous authors hypothesized that disorganized attachment characterized by contradictions and lack of integration would have manifestations at the behavioral, cognitive, affective, and motivational levels, the current study is the first empirical attempt to establish a neuropsychological profile in the disorganized group. In this study, the findings suggested that disorganized attachment is associated with executive functioning deficits in inhibition, processing, planning and organization, mental flexibility, set-maintenance, and self-monitoring. The overall prototype of relatedness in disorganized attachment, consisting of a lack of a coherent and organized strategy was found to parallel a cognitive profile that is characterized by unregulated, uneven, and disordered efforts. Variability in cognitive performance differentiated the disorganized group from other insecurely attached groups whose coherent attachment strategy predicted more consistency on executive functioning measures. Impairments in the executive controls of filtering and self-monitoring differentiated the disorganized group from an ADHD group, based on the excessive number of intrusion errors on a verbal memory test and the high number of perseveration errors on a test of verbal fluency. The overall findings highlighted the importance of early caregiving quality on the experience-dependent maturation of neurocognitive functioning.; The current study is among the first to make use of the most up-to-date, nonprojective attachment measure, the Child Attachment Interview (Schmoeli-Goetz et al., 2003), which integrates representational and narrative approaches of children. Drawing upon the results of the current study, disorganization indices will be better defined to advance future attachment research.