Attachment plays a crucial role in children's mental well-being – but does our testing system align with South African children?
South African researcher Tanya van Aswegen explored how children experience attachment—that is, how safe they feel with the important adults in their lives. Her focus was on how this emotional bond influences depressive symptoms in children—an area where surprisingly little research has been done, especially in low- and middle-income countries like South Africa.
She found that many of the tools used to measure attachment were developed in Western countries and are rarely adapted for other cultural contexts. As a result, these tools often don't reflect the lived experiences of children in places like South Africa.
In her study, Van Aswegen and her colleagues developed a special tool: a narrative task in which children tell short stories about situations where they seek support or safety. This task, called the Middle Childhood Attachment Script Assessment, was adapted specifically for South African children.
The results were striking. Most children told very short stories—so short that they often didn’t meet the test's intended goal: to measure a so-called “secure base script,” the story of a child who feels safe turning to an adult when they are scared or upset. This finding is consistent with earlier research showing that South African children often produce minimal responses in similar tasks.
According to Van Aswegen, there could be several reasons for this. Perhaps many children have not yet developed these secure attachment stories, or perhaps they haven’t had enough such experiences to draw from. Language and culture may also play a significant role—after all, South Africa has eleven official languages and a rich diversity of parenting styles.
Van Aswegen believes this is a key moment to invest more in strengthening secure relationships between children and caregivers, for example through schools or support services. More importantly, her research shows that psychological testing tools need to be better aligned with the cultural context of the child. Only then can we truly understand what children need—and how best to support them.
Van Aswegen’s research opens the door to new, culturally sensitive studies that can help children around the world grow up with a sense of safety, trust, and resilience.
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