LA VALUTAZIONE DELL'ATTACCAMENTO ALL'INSEGNANTE DI SCUOLA MATERNA:DATI PRELIMINARI PER LA VALIDAZIONE DELL'ATTACHMENT Q-SORT IN ETA' PRESCOLARE

The evaluation of child-teacher attachment: A preliminary study for the validation of the Attachment Q-sort in pre-school age. The purpose of this article was validate a version of Attachment Q-sort (AQS; Waters, Deane, 1985) to value attachment relation between a pre-school-age child and his/her teacher. The article reports on 3 studies. The first study describes the procedure used to create the version of the AQS. 10 experts of attachment theory provided the AQS descriptions of the prototypical "most sicure child"; moreover, 15 teachers used the AQS to describe the hypothetical "ideal child" in the context of preschool. The profiles of the teachers were very similar to those of experts. The second study reports on the reliability of the AQS data. 20 preschool-aged children (70% males) and their teachers participated in the study. Test-retest reliability and inter-observer agreement were satisfactory. In the third study, the associations between attachment and level of play were examined. 31 children-aged 4-5 (14 females and 17 males) participated. Play behaviour was observed during free play sessions of 30 minutes and social and cognitive play categories were coded. The quality of the attachment with the teacher was positively associated with the higher level of cognitive and social play and negatively associated with lower levels and with the lack of playing.