Study On The Attachment And Its Relationship With Functional Domains Of Development Disorder Of Autistic Children

As one subtype of pervasive developmental disorder, autistic child is characterized by impairments in social interaction, communication and stereotyped behavior. Parents of autistic child have tremendous pressure and confusion in building a good parent-child relationship. This makes the researchers become interested in study on the attachment of autistic children.Attachment is a strong and lasting emotional connection in the process of interaction between children and parents. Establishment of early security attachment plays a significant role in the process of children's physical, mental and social development. For a long time the inability to form attachment relationship has /had been seen as one of the characteristics of autism. There is a big controversy whether autistic child can establish security attachment. Now, many studies from domestic and abroad have confirmed that autistic children can establish a security attachment. The severity of autism is an influential factor involved in the characters of parent-child attachment. Researchers emphasize that to maintain and develop normal attachment of autism may be a kind of intervention choice for autistic children. However, there is an essential need to do a further research on the attachment and its relationship with functional domains of autistic children's developmental disorderThis dissertation explores the level and characteristics of the attachment and deeply investigates the relationship between attachment and functional domains of PDD of autistic children. A random sample for nearly 300 autistic children in 16 rehabilitation agencies of children with special needs in mainland China is obtained through questionnaires, observations and interviews. And the results of study show that: 1) the overall level of autistic children's attachment is low and the performance of the attachment's dimensions is different; 2) 7% of the autistic children are able to establish security attachment with their parents; 3) there is a significant difference of security attachment level between boys and girls, for autistic boy is apparently higher than autistic girl; 4) the level of security attachment with parents can be improved significantly when the level of parents' education is raising; 5) there is a close relationship between attachment and functional domains; 6) autistic children' s attachment has several prediction variables, including social communication development domain, cognition development domain, sensory development domain and self-care development. Among them, the development of the social communication domain has been playing an utmost important role in the establishment of autistic children's security attachment.Finally, on the basis of analysis and discussion of relationship between attachment and functional domains, basing on attachment theory in the application of autistic children's early intervention, from the "attachment", "attachment subject" and "attachment object" and other dimensions, the researcher provides some suggestions of autistic children's early attachment intervention.