Introduction

            It is believed that over one million children in New York have attachment disorder symptoms.¹ Some experts estimate that one in every twenty preschoolers will grow up to commit a serious crime against another human being and be incarcerated at some point in their life. As many as 5-10%, or, 3-6 million children nationwide, have atypical behavior that is severe enough to cause them to be referred for special education services in schools.² 

            Atypical behavior refers to significant delays or dysfunctions in a child's behavior associated with neurobehavioral characteristics or a lag in developmental behavior.³ Atypical behavior is often described as an extreme temperamental style, such as being overly sensitive or highly reactive. Atypical behavior also includes having difficulty self-regulating. Self-regulation refers to being able to comply to situational demands. It also refers to being able to modulate the intensity, frequency, and duration of verbal and motor acts in social settings. A child that can self-regulate is being able to postpone acting upon a desired object or goal, and can act or respond in a socially approved behavior without being made to do so by another person.⁴

            Atypical behavior is the number one reason children are referred to intervention programs in schools across the country. Often it is not until the child enters school that a child is referred for behavior problems. Yet, when did these behavior problems begin? Were these children born with serious behavior problems? Did their problems develop over time as a result of something that happened to them? And if so, what factors contribute to the development of these serious behavior problems? 

            Many experts believe that atypical behavior in later life is the result of experiences a child had during the early years of life. Some believe that half of all incarcerated adults suffer from some form of psychopathology that can be traced back to the first years of life during the time the child was developing his or her first attachment.^5,6 A child’s first attachment is made with whomever has primary care of the child. Typically this person is the child’s mother but not always.⁷ If it is the father who has primary care for the child, the first attachment could be with him, or with a grandmother or some other adult.

       Attachment can be defined as the "lasting psychological connectedness between human beings.”⁸ To better understand how this attachment process influences a child’s behavior and future relationships it is important to understand how humans learn social behaviors. One way to understand how humans learn social behaviors is to use a theoretical framework from which to view the phenomenon of attachment. There are many models or theories from which to choose and each offers a slightly different lens from which to view attachment. Even within certain models and frameworks variation can be found. For the purpose of this book, I use three social learning models which will be introduced in the next section of this chapter.