Nursery World - Close bond between mother and baby vital for developing toddlers' social skills

Babies who are highly irritable and do not have a secure attachment to their mothers have the greatest difficulty interacting with people and objects as toddlers, according to new research.

To assess their irritability, they observed how the children, at four weeks old or younger, reacted to a series of events including being undressed and hearing a bell ringing.

At 12-months-old they examined the children’s behaviour around their mother to measure their attachment to their main caregiver.

The securely attached children were able to go to their mothers when they were distressed for comfort, while the insecurely attached children could not.

To discover whether the children with difficult temperaments were more likely to be affected by the quality of their relationships with their mother, the researchers observed them at 18 and 24-months-olds to see how they responded to being around unfamiliar adults and toys.

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