Attachment Trauma - Behavioral or developmental?

[Lena Mansah Barnes]

Have you ever known or worked with children who had behavioral or emotional difficulties but seemed resistant to behavioral interventions? Have you ever worked with a child diagnosed with ADD/ADHD that did not demonstrate an increase in attention or on task behavior despite your best interventions?

It's possible that if you looked, you would find that these children had suffered some type of abandonment, neglect, or abuse at some point in their childhood. Children with Attachment Trauma (AT) are frequently mis-diagnosed with ADHD and or EBD. However, studies have shown that cognitive and behavioral interventions alone do not improve behavior or academic achievement with children with AT. They need a more psychodynamics approach along with biophysical interventions. Much as we learned about children with Autsim 10 years ago, children with AT need a very different approach than is commonly used with children who are classified EBD.

AT is more widespread than most are aware. One in every four children in a classroom is affected by AT. AT needs to be separated out of EBD in IDEA classification categories and listed separately.

Your thoughts????