Emotional Availability (EA)

In the late 1980s, Biringen created the Emotional Availability (EA) Scales, an observational rating system designed to examine and measure the quality of the emotional interaction between parent and child, and continued to perfect the system since then.  The system went through several revisions, and the 4th edition (2008) is the most current.  It is the first system based on attachment theory and research that provides a comprehensive and scientific understanding of not only parental behavior toward a child, but also the child's side of the experience.  It is used worldwide in research studies, in clinical work with parents and children, and in child custody evaluations. 

The scales include:  parental sensitivity, parental structuring, parental nonintrusiveness, parental nonhostility, child responsiveness and child involvement.  The EA Scales and the principles upon which they are based are now expanded into EA Self-Reports and the EA Intervention (for parents and for non-parental caregivers). The EA Self-Report has been studied in the US as well as in Belgium and continuing research is being conducted here in the US as well as in Europe and in South America.