Page 83 - Meeting with Children Book

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The development of the necessary complexity of
the child’s growing brain depends upon both
genetic information and experiences. In other
words, the immaturity of the infant’s brain means
that experiences play a significant role in
determining the unique features of emerging
brain connections. Experience shapes even the
very brain structures that will allow the
perception of those experiences to be sensed and
remembered. The care that adults provide,
nurtures the development of essential mental
tools for survival (p. 33).
The quality of care is therefore a point of concern for
those working with families where things are changing
and instead of two caregivers interacting with a child,
there is one at a time, or in the case of children being
removed from the care of both of their caregivers,
neither caregiver is then available.

HISTORICAL CONTRIBUTORS TO
ATTACHMENT THEORY

Although this chapter is not intended to provide the
reader with a full review of the last 50 years of
attachment theory and research, it is important to
cross over into the attachment literature. Much of the
historical research on attachment theory focused on
the mother/child relationship (Bowlby,1951,1953,
1973; Ainsworth, 1967, 1974, 1978, 1985; Robertson,
1952; Main,1995). The famous study of the social
behavior of infant rhesus macaques after maternal