The Thirty-minute Infant/Toddler Naturalistic Observation, Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), and Commentary Supplemental Instructional Sheet
General Instructions
• Please use my sample paper (in Course Documents) “Thirty-minute Infant/Toddler Naturalistic Observation, Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), and Commentary (hence referred to as Model) as a guide for your paper.
• Please reference all quotes according to the College’s policy on Academic Integrity. Please only use APA format for all quotes in your References page.
• Please site the reference for your Quotable Notable(s) in your References pages.
Your Title Page
• Please use the first page of the Model as your title page (with the appropriate editions).
• Please use my title, or create your own title. If you adopt my title, please select the appropriate word, i.e., Infant or Toddler and delete the inappropriate word, e.g., if your child is from three-months to one year old, use Infant and delete Toddler from your title, and if he or she is between one and three years old, use Toddler and delete Infant from your title.
• Please use the rest of the first page of the Model as a guide for your Title Page.
Your Contents Page
• Please use the Contents page of the Model as your Contents page.
• Please use my sections on Historical Perspective of Infant and Toddler Development, Commentary on Toddler Observation, and Developmental Comment only as a resource to write your four (4) to five (5) page Developmental Commentary.
• Please have a References section at the end of your paper, not a bibliography.
Your Observational Frame Page
• Please write one paragraph as your Observational Frame. The Observational Frame is the section of your paper where you inform the reader of the logistics surrounding your observation.
• Please start your Observational Frame with the following sentence (substituting your child’s data), Justus was born on November 12, 2003, which made him 13- months old at the time of this observation.
• Please cover where the observation took place, who was present, and briefly describe the setting.
Your Thirty-minute Infant/Toddler Observation Table
• Please “copy and paste’ my table, and use it as a model for your observation.
• Simply change the times in column one to reflect the times that you conducted your observation.
• Please delete my data from column two and substitute your observational data.
• Please cover where the observation took place, who was present, and briefly describe the setting.
• Please start this section with the following:
Adult Attachment Interview
The AAI begins with the interviewer introducing the general research area, e.g.:
The reason that we’re using this interview is to ask parents about their childhood in an attempt to see how things, which happened to them as children, may have had effects on their later relationship with their own children, and also on their experiences as adults. I’ll ask you mainly about your childhood, but there will be some questions on your later years and what’s going on now.
There are 18 questions in total, and questions each have various related probes. The first question is an integrative one: Could you start by orienting me to your early family situation, where you lived, and so on? If you could start with where you were born, whether you moved around much, what your family did for a living at various times.
• Then in a bolded font, please write your subject’s responses verbatim (please see my Infant Psychopathology paper as and example).
• Write each question in a regular “12-FONT” and your subject’s responses in a bolded, 12-FONT.”
Your Developmental Commentary section
• Please use my Historical Perspective of Infant and Toddler Development section, my Commentary on Toddler Observation section, my Developmental Commentary section, our textbook, lectures, and Appendices A through C of the Model to write your Developmental Commentary section. Hence, your paper will not have a Historical Perspective of Infant and Toddler Development section, nor a Commentary on Toddler Observation section. For your paper, these two sections are to be included in your Developmental Commentary section.
• In this section, please state whether you believe your child is secure, insecure- ambivalent, or insecure-avoidant, and why. Your conclusion should be supported by the literature (theory) and your observations.
• The other major task of this section is for you to state whether you believe that your child’s parent is autonomous, dismissing, or preoccupied (based on attachment theory, the AAI, and your observations), and why.
