CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 167Attachment and Relationship DynamicsChild and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional DevelopmentEarly Childhood Education and Development

Circle of Security–Parenting: A randomized controlled trial in Head Start

Open access
Cassidy, Jude, Brett, Bonnie E., Gross, Jacquelyn T., Stern, Jessica A., Martin, David R., Mohr, Jonathan J., Woodhouse, Susan S.·2017·Development and Psychopathology
DOI 10.1017/s0954579417000244PMC PMC5543687
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Although evidence shows that attachment insecurity and disorganization increase risk for the development of psychopathology (Fearon, Bakermans-Kranenburg, van IJzendoorn, Lapsley, & Roisman, 2010; Groh, Roisman, van IJzendoorn, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & Fearon, 2012), implementation challenges have precluded dissemination of attachment interventions on the broad scale at which they are needed. The Circle of Security–Parenting Intervention (COS-P; Cooper, Hoffman, & Powell, 2009), designed with broad implementation in mind, addresses this gap by training community service providers to use a manualized, video-based program to help caregivers provide a secure base and a safe haven for their children. The present study is a randomized controlled trial of COS-P in a low-income sample of Head Start enrolled children and their mothers. Mothers ( N = 141; 75 intervention, 66 waitlist control) completed a baseline assessment and returned with their children after the 10-week intervention for the outcome assessment, which included the Strange Situation. Intent to treat analyses revealed a main effect for maternal response to child distress, with mothers assigned to COS-P reporting fewer unsupportive (but not more supportive) responses to distress than control group mothers, and a main effect for one dimension of child executive functioning (inhibitory control but not cognitive flexibility when maternal age and marital status were controlled), with intervention group children showing greater control. There were, however, no main effects of intervention for child attachment or behavior problems. Exploratory follow-up analyses suggested intervention effects were moderated by maternal attachment style or depressive symptoms, with moderated intervention effects emerging for child attachment security and disorganization, but not avoidance; for inhibitory control but not cognitive flexibility; and for child internalizing but not externalizing behavior problems. This initial randomized controlled trial of the efficacy of COS-P sets the stage for further exploration of “what works for whom” in attachment intervention.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1017/s0954579417000244

Cites

129 of 129 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • COS-P is a program that has been widely disseminated but not been extensively researched, and of the studies conducted to date, results have been mixed.

    “These are important findings because COS-P is a program that has been widely disseminated but not been extensively researched, and of the studies conducted to date, results have been mixed [18, 74, 95].”

    From Optimizing parenting and child outcomes following parent–child interaction therapy – toddler: a randomized controlled trial (2024) · cites this paper as [18]

    The Discussion reports effects on some outcomes but not others, and the Conclusions and future directions section calls this an initial investigation and recommends further research. Those passages support limited research and mixed outcomes in this trial, but they do not establish that COS-P had already been widely disseminated or that results across studies were mixed. No page numbers were provided for these passages. (LLM, conf=0.83)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 10

  1. Beekman AT Deeg DJ van Limbeek J Braam AW De Vries MZ van Tilburg W 1997 Criterion validity of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale (CES-D): Results from a community-based sample of older subjects in the Netherlands Psychological Medicine 27 231 235 9122304
  2. DeKlyen M Greenberg MT 2016 Attachment and psychopathology in childhood Cassidy J Shaver PR Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications 3 639 666 New York Guilford Press
  3. Fearon RP Belsky J 2016 Precursors of attachment security Cassidy J Shaver PR Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications 3 291 313 New York Guilford Press
  4. Lyons-Ruth K Jacobvitz D 2016 Attachment disorganization from infancy to adulthood: Neurobiological correlates, parenting contexts, and pathways to disorder Cassidy J Shaver PR Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications 3 667 695 New York Guilford Press
  5. Polan HJ Hofer MA 2016 Psychobiological origins of infant attachment and its role in development Cassidy J Shaver PR Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications 3 739 758 New York Guilford Press
  6. Slade A 2016 Attachment and adult psychotherapy: Theory, research, and practice Cassidy J Shaver PR Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications 3 759 779 New York Guilford Press
  7. Solomon J George C 2016 The measurement of attachment security and related constructs Cassidy J Shaver PR Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications 3 366 396 New York Guilford Press
  8. Steele H Steele M in press Handbook of attachment-based interventions New York Guilford Press
  9. Thompson RA 2016 Early attachment and later development: Reframing the questions Cassidy J Shaver PR Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications 3 330 348 New York Guilford Press
  10. Williford AP Carter LM Pianta RC 2016 Attachment and school readiness Cassidy J Shaver PR Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications 3 966 982 New York Guilford Press

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Cassidy, J., Brett, B. E., Gross, J. T., Stern, J. A., Martin, D. R., Mohr, J. J., & Woodhouse, S. S.
Affiliations
  • University of Maryland, College Park (US)
  • Lehigh University (US)
Corresponding author
Cassidy, Jude
ORCID
Venue
Development and Psychopathology
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published
2017-04-12
Volume
29
Issue
2
Pages
651-673
ISSN
  • 0954-5794 (ISSN-L)
  • 1469-2198
DOI
10.1017/s0954579417000244
PMC
PMC5543687
OpenAlex
W2606645606
Cited by
167
References
128
Citations by year
2026: 10 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 9
FWCI
17.61
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified)
Locations
  • Development and Psychopathology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • University Libraries (University of Maryland) (submittedVersion)
  • Digital Repository at the University of Maryland (University of Maryland College Park)
Funders
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD068594)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Attachment and Relationship Dynamics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
  • Social Sciences › Education › Early Childhood Education and Development
Keywords
Circle of Security Parenting, attachment-based intervention, attachment security, disorganized attachment, attachment avoidance, maternal care, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, child behavior problems, internalizing problems, maternal depressive symptoms, maternal attachment style, low-income children, Head Start, community service providers, intervention dissemination
MeSH terms
Problem Behavior, Child Behavior, Child, Preschool, Depression, Female, Humans, Male, Mothers, Object Attachment, Psychotherapy, Parenting, Outcome Assessment, Health Care, Early Intervention, Educational, Executive Function

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review