Attachment Style Classification Questionnaire for Latency Age Children

Abstract

The Attachment Style Classification Questionnaire for Latency Age Children (ASCQ) is a 15-item self-report measure developed by Ricky Finzi-Dottan and colleagues to assess attachment patterns in children, primarily those of latency age. This instrument is an adaptation of the Hebrew version (Mikulincer et al., 1990) of the widely utilized Hazan and Shaver (1987) questionnaire for adults. The ASCQ is designed to categorize children’s relational orientations into three distinct patterns derived from Ainsworth’s classifications: secure, anxious/ambivalent, and avoidant. Items are rated on a 5-point scale, allowing for both categorical analysis and continuous measurement of the underlying dimensions of attachment (anxiety and avoidance).

Keywords

Attachment Style Classification Questionnaire, ASCQ, Latency Age Children, Attachment patterns, Secure attachment, Anxious attachment, Avoidant attachment, Child psychology, Self-report questionnaire.

Authors

Ricky Finzi-Dottan

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Purpose

The primary purpose of the ASCQ is the efficient classification and measurement of attachment styles in school-aged children. It serves as a diagnostic and research tool to understand how children perceive and manage close relationships, trust, and proximity to others. By adapting an established adult measure, the ASCQ provides a method for assessing individual differences in attachment organization during the latency period.

The questionnaire has been particularly valuable in research contexts involving vulnerable populations, such as maltreated children or those from families affected by substance abuse, allowing researchers to explore the links between environmental stressors and the development of specific attachment profiles.

Construct

The ASCQ measures the psychological construct of attachment organization, based on the framework established by Bowlby and operationalized by Ainsworth. It assesses relationship beliefs and behaviors that manifest in three classic attachment patterns:

• Secure Attachment: Characterized by comfort with closeness and dependence, and a belief that others are reliable and available.
• Anxious/Ambivalent Attachment: Characterized by excessive worry about abandonment, desire for extreme closeness, and uncertainty regarding the responsiveness of others.
• Avoidant Attachment: Characterized by discomfort with intimacy, emotional distance, and a preference for self-reliance.

In later applications (Finzi-Dottan et al., 2006), the instrument was used to score continuous dimensions of attachment organization—specifically attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance—providing a more nuanced view of variability, consistent with modern adult attachment models (Brennan, Clark & Shaver, 1998).

Validity

The ASCQ demonstrates concurrent validity, as evidenced by its use and validation in multiple research studies (Finzi et al., 1996; Finzi et al., 2000). The scale’s structure aligns theoretically with established attachment models, suggesting strong construct validity, as it successfully maps onto Ainsworth’s three patterns using self-report items tailored for children.

The validation studies frequently compare the scale results with other measures of psychosocial functioning in clinical and non-clinical samples, confirming that the attachment classifications derived from the ASCQ correlate meaningfully with behavioral outcomes and family characteristics, such as experiences of maltreatment or parental substance abuse.

Reliability

Reliability estimates, specifically internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha), have been reported for the continuous dimensions derived from the scale. In a 2006 study by Finzi-Dottan and colleagues, the reliability coefficients were found to be satisfactory for research purposes:

• Internal consistency for the Anxious subscale: α = .80
• Internal consistency for the Avoidant subscale: α = .70

These values indicate acceptable reliability for measuring the underlying anxious and avoidant dimensions of attachment in this population.

Factor Analysis

The Attachment Style Classification Questionnaire for Latency Age Children is structured around 15 items loading onto three primary factors, corresponding to the three categorical attachment patterns identified by Ainsworth: Secure, Anxious/Ambivalent, and Avoidant. Each factor comprises five items.

When used for continuous scoring, the 15 items are averaged to compute two total scores reflecting the dimensions of anxiety and avoidance. Importantly, studies using this continuous method (e.g., Finzi-Dottan et al., 2006) confirmed that the anxiety and avoidance scores were not significantly associated (r=.32; p>.05), supporting the conceptual independence of these two dimensions in the measured population.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report questionnaire / Classification tool

Format: 15 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale.

Language Available: Hebrew (Original adaptation), English (Translation available)

Population Group: Children

Age Group: Latency Age Children (Typically 6–12 years old)

Population Details: Has been validated and used extensively in samples including physically abused, neglected, and maltreated children, as well as children of drug-using fathers.

Test Methodology: Respondents rate the extent to which each item describes them, ranging from 1 (All wrong/Not at all) to 5 (Very right/Very much).

Keywords

Psychological assessment, Relational styles, Child development, Mikulincer, Hazan and Shaver, Psychometric properties, Self-report measure, Internal working models.

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Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in source content.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not provided in source content.

Correspondence Address: Not provided in source content.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: Initial development and validation reported in 1996 and 2000 (Finzi et al.).

Permissions and Fee: Information regarding commercial licensing or specific usage fees is not detailed in the source content. Researchers should contact the primary author, Ricky Finzi-Dottan, for permission to use the scale.

Reference’s

Finzi, R., Cohen, O., Sapir, Y., Weizman, A. (2000). Attachment Styles in Maltreated children: A comparative Study. Child Psychiatry & Human Development, 31, 113-128.

Finzi, R., Ram, A., Har-Even, D. Shnit, D. & Weizman, A. (2001). Attachment styles in physically abused and neglected children. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 30, 769-786.

Finzi, R., Har-Even, D., Shnit, D., & Weizman, A. (2002). Psychosocial Characterization of Physically Abused Children from Low Socio-economic Households in Comparison to Neglected and Non-Maltreated Children. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 11, 441-453.

Finzi, R., Cohen, O., Iwaniec, D., Sapir, Y. & Weizman, A. (2003). Attachment styles in the families of the drug-using father. Substance Use and Misuse, 38, 271-292.

Finzi-Dottan, R., Cohen, O., Iwaniec, D. Sapir, Y., & Weizman, A. (2006). The child in the family of a drug-user father: Attachment styles and family characteristics. S.L. Ashenberg Strassner & C. Huff Fewell (Eds.). Impact of substance abuse in children and families (pp. 89-111). Binghamton, NY: Haworth.

Finzi-Dottan, R., Manor, I. & Tyano, S. (2006). ADHD, temperament, and parental style as predictors of the child’s attachment patterns. Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 37, 103-114.

Hazan, C., & Shaver, P. (1987). Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 511–524.

Mikulincer, M., Florian, V., & Tolmacz, R. (1990). Attachment styles and fear of personal death: A case study of the Holocaust survivors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 30-36.

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Items of the Attachment Style Classification Questionnaire for Latency Age Children

(English translation of Hebrew version)

Here are 15 sentences. How true is each of the sentences for you? Everyone has his or her own answer. Try to answer only what you feel. This is not a test, and there are no right or wrong answers. Read each sentence carefully. Then choose one of the five answers in the box below. Every answer has a number. Circle the number of the answer that best describes you.

1. I make friends with other children easily
2. I don’t feel comfortable trying to make friends
3. It is easy for me to depend on others, if they’re good friends of mine
4. Sometimes others get too friendly and too close to me
5. Sometimes I’m afraid that other kids won’t want to be with me
6. I’d like to be really close to some children and always be with them
7. It’s all right with me if good friends trust and depend on me
8. It’s hard for me to trust others completely
9. I sometimes feel that others don’t want to be good friends with me as much as I do with them
10. I usually believe that others who are close to me will not leave me
11. I’m sometimes afraid that no one really loves me
12. I find it uncomfortable and get annoyed when someone tries to get too close to me
13. It’s hard for me to really trust others, even if they’re good friends of mine
14. Children sometimes avoid me when I want to get close and be a good friend of theirs
15. Usually, when anyone tries to get too close to me it does not bother me

Items # for each type:

• Secure: 1, 3, 7, 10, 15
• Anxious/Ambivalent: 5, 6, 9, 11, 14
• Avoidant: 2, 4, 8, 12, 13