Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Abstract
Background & objective: The aim of this study is to compare the effect of Attachment-based Therapy and Parenting Skills Training on their children’s attachment disorder.
Methods: This is a pretest-posttest control group quasi - experimental study. The population included all mothers of preschool children with attachment disorder in Aran and Bidgol-Iran.  Convenience sampling was used to recruit 150 participants. The research instrument was Attachment Disorder Assessment Sclae (ADAS) developed by Randolph (2000). This is a 30-statement checklist to be filled out by parents or caregivers of children with attachment disorder and includes various problems that the child caregiver has observed in the child during the past 2 years. Randolph believes that this questionnaire can distinguish between children with attachment disorder and those with disruptive behavior disorders. 45 mothers who gained the highest scores on the questionnaire were placed in two experimental groups and one control group.  The parents in experimental group one received eight sessions of attachment-based therapy. The parents in experimental group two received eight sessions of parenting skills therapy. The parents in the control group received no intervention. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to analyze the data.
Results: The means and standard deviations of the three groups were as follows:  attachment-based therapy 41.0±3.21; parenting skills training 45.80±8.10 and the control group 59.73±17.19. The differences between these averages were calculated by F test. The results showed that there was no significant difference in three group’s pre-test scores (P=0.001, F=11.48, Effect size=0.35). While there was no difference between the two experimental groups (p=0.241), they obtained a significantly lower mean score than that in the control group (p<0.01). Therefore, it can be concluded that the training and treatment interventions had both a significant effect on the reduction of attachment disorder among children.
Conclusion: The results confirm the effect of Attachment-based Therapy and Parenting Skills Training on reduction of the symptoms of children's attachment disorder. It can be asserted that Attachment-based Therapy and Parenting Skills Training improve the communication skills and the self-awareness skills, self-worth and self-confidence of mothers of children with attachment disorder, giving them the roadmap and showing them the right way to deal with their children.