Romanian orphans- effect of institutionalisation

• What is an institution?


  Is a place dedicated to a particular task, such as looking after children, awaiting adoption, caring for the mentally ill or looking after patients in hospital.

  Institutions used to have strict regimes and offered little emotional care.
• When did Romanian orphan’s begin?

  • Began under the rule of Nicolae Ceausescu who banned abortion and denied access to use contraception at a time of severe food and energy shortages.
  • Many romanIan’s abandoned their new born children, leaving thousands at under-funded, state-run orphanages.
  • After the 1989 revolution, many of the orphans were adopted, some by British parents.
• What can be concluded from Rutter’s English and Romanian adoptee study?

  The study suggests that early negative effects of institutionalisation can lead to physical, cognitive and social impairments.

  However the effects can be minimised providing the child is adopted before 6 months.
• What conclusions can be made from the Bucharest early intervention project about children in institutions?

  • The study suggests that institutionalised children display disorganised and disinhibited attachment
• Effect of institutionalisation- disinhibited attachment

  • A form of insecure attachment where children do not discriminate between people
  • They are equally affectionate towards people they know well and strangers.
• Research support for disinhibited attachment in institutions

  • Rutter
  • Explained that disinhibited attachment occurs because the child has lived with multiple caregivers during the sensitive period for attachment formation.
  • Therefore they have not had the opportunity to form a secure attachment
• Effects of institutionalisation- Intellectual delay

  • Intellectual under functioning- cognitive impairment is due to emotional deprivation.
  • In Rutter’s study, most children adopted before 6 months were able to catch up with the control group by the age of 4
  • Intellectual development can be recovered providing adopting takes place before 6 months
• Effects of institutionalisation- Physical effects

  • Physical underdevelopment
  • children in institutional care are usually physically small and are malnourished.
• Real world application

  • Improving conditions for children growing up outside their family home.
  • For example, orphanages and children’s homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child.
  • This suggests that having 1 or 2 people ensures that children have a chance to develop normal attachments and helps avoid disinhibited attachment as well as reduce the intellectual and emotional effects of poor quality care within orphanages.
  • This means that children in institution care have a chance to develop normal attachments and disinhibited attachment is avoided.
• Value of longitudinal studies

  • Rutter’s ERA study followed the lives of children over many years.
  • Through using longitudinal studies, we can assess the development of those who have been institutionalised. Without such studies we may mistakenly conclude that there are major effects of early institutional care whereas these studies can disappear after sufficient time and suitable high quality care.
  • As a result of longitudinal studies we can understand the long-term effects and what is needed to ensure institutionalised children develop in a healthy way.
• Romanian orphans were not typical

  • For example, Romanian orphanages had particularly poor standards of care, especially when forming a relationship with children and extremely low levels of intellectual stimulation.
  • Despite the useful and valuable contribution of the long-term effects of institutional, it is plausible that the conditions were extremely bad, so the findings cannot be applied to understanding other institutions.
  • Due to unusual situational variables, the Romanian orphan studies lack generalisability.
• Socially sensitive research

  • Results have shown that later-adopted children typically experience poor developmental outcomes. The results were published as the children were growing up.
  • This means that children’s parents, teachers and anyone else who knew them might have lowered expectations and treated the adopted children differently.
  • Therefore this might have created a self-fulling prophecy.