Institutionalization

• Orphans’ studies are used to study the effects of deprivation on emotional and intellectual development. This effects of institutionalisation was studied in Romania as during the 1990s the former president required women to have 5 children and many parents were unable to afford to keep the children and so ended up in orphanages in very poor conditions
• Effects of institutionalisation

  Disinhibited attachments – where a child shows no stranger anxiety and will treat people they know well and strangers the same showing attention seeking behaviour. Poor intellectual development institutionalised children show signs of mental retardation. Poor physical development – physically smaller than those who have not be institutionalised lack of emotional care can affect growth hormones.
• English and Romanian adoptee study- Rutter et Al

  Rutter wanted to investigate whether good quality care after adoption can make up for poor early institutional experiences
• Procedure

  165 Romanian orphans were adopted into British families .111 adopted before the age of 2 and 54 by the age of 4 Rutter wanted to see if good care could compensate for the privation the children had suffered . This was a naturalistic experiment as the age of adoption being the naturally occurring iv Physical, cognitive and emotional development has been assessed at age 4 ,6,11 and 15 . A control group of 52 chilldren adopted in uk before 6 months.
• Results-


  At the time of adoption half of the adoptees showed signs of delayed intellectual development and majority were severely undernourished . The mean iq o the chilldren adopted before the age of 6 months was 102 compared to 86 for those adopted after 6 months by the age of 4 some Romanian had caught up with their British peers if adopted before 6 months . Those adopted after 6 months had trouble getting along with peers
• conclusion

  This suggests that effects of institutionalisation can be recovered but the time of adoption is imperative Rutter suggested that Bowlby’s critical period could be better described as the sensitive period as it is not impossible to form attachments after the age of 2 and a half years.