Romanian Orphan studies - Institutionalisation

• What was the aim of Rutter et al.'s study of Romanian Orphanages?

  To see if good care can make up for poor early experiences in institutions
• What was the procedure of Rutter et al.'s study?

  • Assessing physical, cognitive and emotional development in children aged 4-25
  • The children were adopted by UK families
  • A group of 52 children in the UK adopted served as the control group that the romanians would be compared to
• What were the findings of the study?

  • Half of the children showed signs of delayed intellectual development
  • Age 11 = children showed different rates of recovery that were related to their age of adoption
  • Mean IQ levels:
  • Before 6 months = 102 , Between 6 months & 2 years = 77, After 2 years = 22
  • Children adopted after 6 months showed signs of disinhibited attachment - attention-seeking, clingyness etc
  • Those adopted before 6 months rarely showed signs of disinhibited attachment
• What was the aim of Zeanah et al.'s study?

  To assess attachment in Romanian orphans
• What was the procedure of Zeanah et al.'s study?

  • 95 romanian children aged 12-31 months who spent most of their lives in orphanages
  • Compared to a group of children who had not been in instiutions
  • Measured by the Strange Situation
  • Carers were asked about unusual social behaviour (disinhibited attachment)
• What were the findings of Zeanah's study?

  74% of the control group were classed as securely attached in the SS

  Only 19% of the Romanian orphans were classed as securely attached

  The concept of disinhibited applied to 44% of Romanian orphans
• What effect does institutionalisation have on disinhibited attachment?

  • Children in institutions develop disinhibited attachment
• How has Rutter explained disinhibited attachment?

  He explains it as an adaption to living with multiple carers during the critical and sensitive period for attachment formation

  Eg. The Romanian orphans may have multiple carers but do not have enough time to be able to form a secure attachment
• How does institutionalisation affect intellectual ability?

  Rutter's study - most orphans showed intellectual disability but after being adopted they caught up with the control group

  • Intellectual disability can be recovered if a child is adopted before the age of 6 months (critical period)
• How can the study of Romanian orphananages be applied to real work context? (Strength)

  • improved psychologists understanding of the effects of early instiutional care & how to prevent it
  • led to improvements in conditions experienced by looked-after children - key workers (emotional care)
  • this gives children chances to develop normal attachments and disinhibited attachments is avoided
• How do the Romanian orphanages have less confounding variables? (Strength)

  • The children had been handed over by loving parents who were unable to afford to look after them, so they hadn't experienced early traumatic experiences
  • This means the results were less likely to be confounded by negative early experiences
  • This means the study has high internal validity
• What is the one critique of Romanian Orphan studies? (Limitation)

  • There is a lack of data on adult development
  • The latest data from the study looked at children from their early to mid 20s
  • This means that there isn't much explaination to the questions of the longer-termed effects of institutionalisation