insitutionalisation

• what is meant by institutionalisation?

  effects of living in an institutional setting (eg. hospital, orphanage) which tend to have little emotional care provided?
• what are orphan studies?


  studies involving children placed in care because their parents can't look after them, have died, or abandoned them
• describe Rutter et al.'s procedure for their research into Romanian orphans

  • group of 165 Romanian orphans adopted in England
  • grouped into those adopted before 6 months and those adopted between 6 months and 2 years
  • assessed on their psychical, cognitive and emotional development at ages 4, 6, 11, 15, 22-25
  • group of 52 uk children adopted at the same time were used as a control group
• what were the findings of Rutter et al.'s research?

  • when first arriving in England, half the children showed signs of delayed intellectual development
  • at age 6: those adopted after 6 months showed signs of disinhibited attachment
  • at age 11: half of the children who showed disinhibited attachment still showed it; children adopted after 6 months showed delayed emotional, physical and intellectual development
  • showed differential rates of recovery that were related to their age of adoption --> those who were adopted younger had higher IQs
• explain what Rutter's research suggests

  that adoption in the first 6 months is important as the rate of recovery depends on the age of adoption and the effects of deprivation in institutions are long lasting

  however, some of the children adopted after two years showed signs of recovery suggesting that Bowlby's critical period is more likely a sensitive period
• explain the effects of institutionalisation of attachment

  DISINHIBITED ATTACHMENT:

  > children who spent early lives in institutions often showed signs of disinhibited attachment, while being equally friendly to strangers and familiar people --> highly unusual at an age where they are supposed to show stranger anxiety

  > Rutter explained disinhibited attachment as an adaptation to living with multiple caregivers during the critical period
• explain the effects of institutionalisation on intellectual development

  INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY:

  > in Rutter's study, most of the children showed signs of intellectual disability when they arrived in GB --> most that were adopted before 6 months caught up with the control group by age 4

  > this shows that, like emotional development, damage to intellectual development as a result of institutionalisation can be recovered provided adoption take place before 6 months
• name one strength of research into the effects of institutionalisation

  FEWER CONFOUNDING VARIABLES:

  < previous orphan studies had orphans who had experienced trauma such as neglect, abuse or bereavement which the effects of are hard to disentangle so may skew findings

  < in Romanian orphan studies the children had had no trauma

  = this means that results were much less likely to be confounded by other negative early experiences --> HIGH INTERNAL VALIDITY
• name one limitation of research into the effects of institutionalisation

  LACK OF ADULT DATA:

  < there is a lack of data on adult development --> the latest data was from when the children were in their 20s meaning there is no data on the long term effects of early institutional care

  = and due to the longitudinal design of the study, it will be a long time before we fully know what the long term effects are