Hillman, S;
Hodges, J;
Steele, M;
Cirasola, A;
Asquith, K;
Kaniuk, J;
(2020)
Assessing changes in the internal worlds of early- and late-adopted children using the Story Stem Assessment Profile (SSAP).
Adoption & Fostering
, 44
(4)
pp. 377-396.
10.1177/0308575920971132.
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Abstract
A growing body of literature has consistently shown how adopted children often have previous history of trauma and neglect, and in turn develop negative representations of the self and others. This study assesses the internal representations of three groups of children, as measured by the Story Stem Assessment Profile (SSAP). These were: (1) a maltreated, late-adopted (MLA) sample (n = 63); (2) a non-maltreated, early-adopted (EA) sample (n = 48); and (3) a non-maltreated community sample (COMM) (n = 80). In addition, it examined whether MLA and EA adopted children’s attachment and internal representations changed over time. Results showed that children in the MLA sample significantly displayed more disorganised, avoidant and negative representations and fewer representations characteristic of ‘secure’ attachment when compared with EA and, especially, COMM children. Longitudinal follow-up of both MLA and EA samples demonstrated significant changes over a two-year period in SSAP representation; secure representations increased while the avoidant and disorganised ones diminished. These findings are discussed and the limitations and implications of the study presented.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Assessing changes in the internal worlds of early- and late-adopted children using the Story Stem Assessment Profile (SSAP) |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1177/0308575920971132 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2020.102023 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
| Keywords: | Attachment, story stems, adopted children, maltreatment, internal representations |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Clinical, Edu and Hlth Psychology |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10124691 |
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