roman orphan studies

• institutionalisation

  the effect of institutional care. In relation to child development can be seen as  how time in an institution e.g an orphanage can affect the development of a child.Effects include social,mental and physical  underdevelopment. Some of these effects may be irreversible.
• rutter's procedure

  Rutter and colleagues (2011) studied a group of 165 Romanian orphans(111 adopted before the age of 2,54 adopted before the age of 4) adopted in Britain to test to what extent  good care could make up for the poor early experiences in institutions.Physical,cognitive and emotional development were tested ages 4,6,11 and 15 years.A control group of 52 British children adopted before the age of 6 months was studied and used for comparison.Information was also collected from interviews with parents and teachers.
• rutters findings

  At the time of adoption the Romanian orphans were behind their British counterparts on all measures of physical,cognitive and social development.They were smaller,weighed less and classed as mentally retarded.By the age of 4 some of the romanain orphans had caught up.This was true for almost all of the romanian children adopted before the age of 6 months.
• rutters study findings

  • Follow ups confirmed that the significant effects remain in the substantial minority of individuals who experienced institutional care beyond the age of 6 months.Many of the children adopted after 6 months exhibited disinhibited attachments and had problems with peer relationships.
  • This suggests that long term consequences may be less severe than what was once thought if children have the opportunity to form attachments.However,when children fail to form attachments,then the consequences are likely to be severe.
• effects of institutionalisation

  • physical underdevelopment
  • intellectual underfunctioning
  • disinhibited attachment
  • poor parenting
• physical underdevelopment

  children in institutional care are usually physically small.Gardner(1972) said that lack of emotional care rather than poor nourishment causes deprivation dwarfism.
• intellectual underfunctioning

  cognitive development is also affected by emotional deprivation
• disinhibited attachment

  a form of insecure attachment where children do not discriminate between people they choose as attachment figures.Such children are equally friendly to those who they know as well as strangers.This is unusual behaviour.
• poor parenting

  children grew to become poor parents