This study was conducted to examine the feature of attachment and the main factors of attachment development between autistic child and his or her mother. Data was collected at Day Care Center for Children with Developmental Disorder in S National University Hospital through nurses´s participating observation, interview with the mothers, and review of nursing records, from April 2 to June 30, 1994. The subjects were all 6 children, one was a girl, the others were boys, and their mothers who participated at the sensory-integrative play for attachment promotion served at this center.
Content analysis was done for data analysis. First,
´ Seoul Health Junior College.
" Seoul National University Hospital.all data were categorized by main concepts, reciprocity and affect. Then these were analyzd and discussed on the aspects of specificity, proximity, synchrony, joint attention, strong affect emotional availability which were chosen as the components of attachment through literature review.
The results of this study were summarized as follows all subjects were underdeveloped, unstable and showed different level of mother-child attachment. But during the program their attachment behaviors improved little by little. The behaviors which represented specificity, proximity, and strong affect were increased considerably, on the other hand the behaviors which represented joint attention and emotional availability were scarce. The more mother and child had contact and interacted merrily, the more their attachment behaviors developed.
Another important: factors of attachment development in these cases were mother and child´s each characteristics. Especially the child´s autistic peculiarity, such as indifference, severe resistance, distracterbility, stereotype tendency, physical condition were major barriers of maintatining the mother-child interaction. Also mother´s attitude to her child, raring skill and physical condition were influencing factors. A few mothers who were anxious and stubborn had much more difficulty to adjust to their children.
The mother who had experienced happiness with her child, especially if the mother experienced more fun at the play by herself became more positive, active and flexible, and that mother.-child interaction maintained much longer and improved. It was more critical to help them en-joy their interaction. Thus nurses had to plan and intervene more joyful and various play, and consider mother´s need in addition to child´s need. And The program should be strengthened to support the mother emotionally to maximize the therapeutic effect.
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