About Emotional Availability
Emotional Availability (EA) is the “connective tissue of relationships” and a life-span measurement tool that evaluates adult-child relationships from pregnancy to adolescent age 17 years.
The EA System is used to evaluate the observed quality of mother-child and father-child relationships, as well as other relationships, including those of child care professionals and teachers with children; child care providers in their homes; grandparents with their grandchildren; adult caregivers with dementia patients; therapists with their clients; as well as the doctor-patient relationship. The EA System has been used to evaluate children who are typically developing as well as those who show atypical development, including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Down’s Syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Cerebral Palsy, Hearing and Visual Difficulties, as well as varied Internalizing and Externalizing Behavioral Problems. Similarly, a wide range of parents can be evaluated, including low-risk (high income, high functioning) as well as higher risk families (e.g., lower income, those who have a history of unipolar or bipolar depression) as well as those who show personality disorders (e.g., borderline personality disorder).
FAQs
An entire list of the EA references will be place on the site soon, if not earlier. Please re-check under Research.
EA is done in a real-world setting and so you do not need to set things up in any constrained way. Play time, conversation will all be real world-contexts for doing the EA. BUT, it is important to film well, meaning do not film into a light source (e.g., a window) and make sure you can see the faces of both adult and child, at least part of the time.
The couple of parenting books on this site may be useful. We will further develop materials for parents. Right now, parents will need to learn through a professional using the EA Brief, to gain moment-to-moment feedback on their EA, and whether it is improving.