Children’s Insecure Representations of the Interparental Relationship and Their School Adjustment: The Mediating Role of Attention Difficulties

Abstract

This study examined the role of attention difficulties as a mediator of associations between children’s insecure representations of the interparental relationship and their school adjustment in a sample of two hundred and sixteen 6-year-old children. Consistent with hypotheses, findings from structural equation models indicated that observer ratings of children’s insecure representations of interparental relationships in a story completion task predicted computerized task assessments and parent reports of children’s attention difficulties 1 year later. Children’s attention difficulties, in turn, were associated with concurrent levels of school problems and increases in school problems over a 1-year period as indexed by teacher reports. Attention difficulties accounted for an average of 34% of the association between insecure internal representations and school problems.