DEVELOPMENT OF ATTACHMENT AND NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS

The Author presents the basic criteria of attachment theory, describes its various elaborations and clarifications, operated among others by the interactive-cognitive approach, especially regarding the concepts of monotropism, communicative intentionality and intersubjectivity. The author discusses some aspects of the internal operative model and its stability in time. The explorative system of the child, complementary to the attachment system is emphasized, together with individual factors concerning disposition and organization of central nervous system. In this regard, the author recalls recent contributions by neurosciences on structure and function of CNS, already emerging at birth, and organizing both behavior and the different system. Following personal research and clinical observations, the author describes some pathological features of attention and consciousness states, and some possible dissociations between the various memory types or subsystems already possible at a very early age. When put in relation with affective states and communication modes, they seem to characterize - at different grades and with different pathways - the wide range of both generalized and specific developmental disorders.