2025 ASCIP Annual Conference and Expo: September 3-6, 2025.

Internationally adopted children represent a population at developmental risk, considering their potential history of early adversities and deprivation. The children may have pre- and post-natal risk factors as well as maltreatment and neglect in their background, creating a mixture of negative experiences affecting their development [, ]. The absence of a stable caregiver is a common feature in the background of these children as they typically have experienced institutional rearing, placing the children at risk for various psychopathology in both their socioemotional and physiological development [–]. The lack of a long-term relationship with a sensitive caregiver may predict disturbances in attachment patterns [, ], increasing risk for later emotional problems [, ]. However, the transition of a child from institutional care into an adoptive family can lead to a significant recovery [, ] and studies suggest that children begin to form an attachment relationship with the adoptive parents during the first six months after arriving into the family [–]. According to the transactional model of development, the child and the parent mutually influence one another during the development of their relationship []. Internationally adopted children have pre-adoptive experiences that influence the forming of a new relationship with their adoptive parents. Examining this parent–child interaction in more detail and the potential effect of the age when the process starts and the sex of the child in this process in adoptive families can give us more understanding and clinical perspective in this relationship in the first months after adoption. There are studies about the impact of sensitive parenting on attachment after adoption [, –] as well as about the impact of different aspects of parenting, including sensitivity, structuring, consistency, efficacy and lack of intrusiveness, on the emotional and behavioral adjustment of the adoptive child [, , ]. Studies have demonstrated the effect of the internal working models of the adoptive mother on early attachment patterns of the adoptive child [] as well as the mediating effect of attachment security on later psychopathology of children having a background in institutions []. Many studies have concentrated only on parental dimensions of the relationship of the adoptive child with the parent, although the effects of child individual characteristics on the interaction may be specifically important in adopted children, considering the large amount of institutional background and potential history of neglect among them. It has been also argued that internationally adopted children may represent a population with atypical attachment behavior because of their exceptional background in institutional rearing conditions, suggesting methodological difficulties in assessing attachment in this population [, ]. Studies on early attachment development of adopted children have found mixed results in terms of security of attachment [, , ]. Thus, more understanding in specific behavioral patterns of the child as well as in attachment development in this early relationship is needed. The Emotional Availability Scales (EAS) were developed from the theory of Emotional Availability (EA) that has its background in attachment theory as well as several other theoretical influences like the transactional model, the systems theory, the emotion theory and the psychodynamic theory []. The EA includes four dimensions for the parent (sensitivity, structuring, non-intrusiveness, non-hostility) and two dimensions for the child (responsiveness, involvement of the parent) to describe the behavior and the EA of the parent–child dyad in the interaction [, ]. Biringen and colleagues describe the EA: “All these dimensions are dyadic or relationship constructs, such that the adult´s and child´s behaviors are viewed in the context of a dynamic, mutually reinforcing feedback loop, rather than only as an individual´s behavior” [, p. 192]. Furthermore, the EA is described to be an overlapping, but not identical construct with attachment, measuring emotional attachment of the relationship [, ]. Whereas the focus of the traditional attachment measures is in the ability of the child to rely on the parent during stress, emotional attachment includes the affective expression and emotional connection of the relationship that occur also outside of stressful situations [, ]. There are studies showing association between the EA and attachment [, ], and the adult sensitivity scale and the child responsiveness scale have been validated against insecure/secure attachment []. Studies have shown association between the EA and several aspects of socioemotional development in non-adopted children [–] as well as between child-related risk factors (developmental delay, very low birth weight/pre-term children) and the child EA [, ]. Thus, examining early interaction of internationally adopted children using all the dimensions of the EA