Privation

We've looked recently at what can happen if a child doesn't form an attachment - this is privation. We discussed two case studies - Genie and the Czech twins and you need to know the details of one of these. We also looked at a longitudinal study on privation by Hodges & Tizard (ppt here).

If an attachment has been formed but is broken then this is separation. In the short term this will result in separation anxiety in a securely attached child, but if the separation is longer than a few minutes then the PDD model (protest, despair, despondency) will be relevant. Remember the video clip that we watched of Little John who sought comfort in the large teddy bear and tried to elicit attention from the nurses:

We also covered institutionalisation (ppt here), a specific form of attachment that can result in disinhibited attachment.

Today I set a 12 mark homework essay. This is due in a fortnight. 'Discuss the effects of privation' (12 marks).

Key terms that you should know: Privation, Separation, Institutionalisation, PDD, Disinhibited attachment.