- It starts before the age of 5.
- It is characterized by problems in social communication.
- It occurs as a result of the lack of healthy emotional attachment between the child and the caregiver in the first years of life.
- These children, who cannot realize healthy emotional attachment, cannot develop a sense of trust in their environment and accordingly, problems in emotional development occur.
What are the Causes?
This condition is likely to be caused by neglect of the child by the parents for various reasons, often unintentionally
- There may be several reasons for this neglect
- Young and inexperienced parents
- Unintended pregnancy
- Having twins or triplets
- Having consecutive children in a very short period of time
- Mother's use of drugs and alcohol
- Early separation from the mother for some reasons
- Many and frequent changes of caregivers
- Growth in orphanages
- Postpartum depression in the mother
- Spending long hours in front of TV, tablet and phone in very early months
- Long hours alone with the child while the mother is at home doing work
What are the symptoms?
- Not responding or rarely responding when called
- Not initiating social communication spontaneously
- Not calming down easily when restless or crying
- Ignoring the caregiver's disappearance
- Don't alienate people
- Prolonged or infrequent eye contact
- Dislike and rejection of physical contact
- Imaginary game playing
- Inadequate non-verbal communication: not using hand signals, not waving bye-bye, not using gestures and facial expressions
- Delay in speech and language
- Repeating phrases they hear or repeating what they are told instead of responding
- Making some repetitive movements without a purpose
There are overlapping symptoms between autism spectrum disorder and reactive attachment disorder. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish severe cases from autism.
The features that distinguish them from autism are as follows;
- Better capacity to establish reciprocal social relationships
- Abnormal social reactions begin to improve over time with the initiation and continuation of healthy and appropriate care
- Delay in speech and language is not as severe as in autism
- Absence of severe cognitive retardation, which is common in autism
How is it treated?
- The most important and indispensable element of treatment is to improve the care given to the child and make it healthy
- Parents should increase communication with the child
- If possible, it is necessary to start kindergarten or nursery school
- Speech and language therapy is usually required
- For this purpose, parents should be trained in child care and their skills should be improved;
- any postpartum depression in the mother should be treated
- If there is a frequent change of caregiver, this should be prevented
- Children should be prevented from spending long hours in front of TV, tablet and phone
- Reactive Attachment Disorder can be prevented by parents meeting the child's emotional needs from birth
- Children should not be allowed to play alone for long hours.