ARE TWINS DIFFERENT FROM SINGLETONS DURING EARLY-CHILDHOOD

This paper examines the specificity of intrafamilial experiences to which twins are exposed during early childhood, and the impact of this family context on the psychological development of twins. An overview of the literature on the psychological development of twins indicates two broad categories of findings. The first category covers studies dealing with the developmental features that appear early in twins. Although there are numerous studies comparing the psychomotor and verbal development of twins to singletons, only a few have dealt with the emergence of personality and identity, and most have been conducted in clinical settings. The second set of studies deals with mother-twin relations, explored in recent years in terms of the psychosocial stress created by twin births. Few studies have examined the mother-twin relationship in the light of major theories on mother-child bonding (psychoanalysis, attachment, interactionist model). These developmental models have mainly focused on mother-infant dyads, while the construction of this specific mother-twin relationship needs to be set within the framework of a triadic situation. Rather than describing a specific 'twin mentality', it is argued here that the twin situation should be seen as a special case of adaptative development, both for the mother and the child, which has effects on the formation of the individual.