Symptoms of Reactive Attachment Disorder

Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD)
Signs and Symptoms You Should Know

Are you concerned that a child in your care, perhaps from a broken family, a foster child, or an adopted child, may have Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD)?  Children need sensitive and responsive caregivers to develop secure attachments. RAD arises from a failure to form normal attachments to primary caregivers in early childhood.  Such a failure could result from severe early experiences of neglect, abuse, abrupt separation from caregivers, frequent change of caregivers, or a lack of caregiver responsiveness to a child's communicative efforts.

Symptoms of Reactive Attachment Disorder may include:

The core feature is severely inappropriate social relating by affected children. This can manifest itself in two ways:

1. Indiscriminate and excessive attempts to receive comfort and affection from any available adult, even relative strangers (older children and adolescents may also aim attempts at peers).
   
   
2. Extreme reluctance to initiate or accept comfort and affection, even from familiar adults, especially when distressed.
   
   

Other symptoms may include:

• Self-endangering behavior
  
  
• Uncommunicative with unfamiliar adults
  
  
• Willingness to go off with relative strangers
  
  
• Excessive clinging
  
  
• Vigilance/hyper compliance
  
  
• Having a discriminated, preferred adult
  
  
• Social and emotional reciprocity
  
  
• Checking back after venturing away from the care giver
  
  
• Seeking comfort when distressed
  
  
• Unpredictable or hostile relationships with caregivers in the early years
  
  
• Markedly disturbed and developmentally inappropriate social relatedness in most contexts (e.g., the child is avoidant or unresponsive to care when offered by caregivers or is indiscriminately affectionate with strangers).
  
  
• Poor social interaction with peers
  
  
• Aggression towards self and others

 

Don't Delay - Take Action Today

Give us a call and set an appointment to speak with one of our clinicians to diagnose and treat your family member or friend. We welcome the chance to provide them with the expert assistance they need.