Romanian orphan studies

• Rutter claimed that the severe long term damage Bowlby assosciated with deprivation is actually more likely to be due to privation. Privation is the lack of an attachment and the individual has not made an attachment with a caregiver.
• The effects of privation can be studied by looking at the extreme cases of institutionalisation where little emotional care has been provided leading to a lack of attachment formation.
• An institution is a place like a hospital, a children's home or an orphanage where children live for long periods of time. Living in an institutional setting where little emotional care is provided can severely affect the psychological development and wellbeing of children.
• This has been researched with longitudinal studies that follow children after they have been adopted to see if the effects are permanent.
• Effects of institutionalisation :

  • disinhibted attachment - attention seeking, peer relationships, indiscriminate friendliness with familiar or unfamiliar people
  • mental retardation
  • depression
  • behavioural problems
  • poor family
  • relationships
• Rutter - English Romanian Adoption study

  The aims of this were to see if the effects of institutional care and privation can be overcome in the long term. Aimed to see if love and care can make up for earlier poor experiences.
• Rutter - procedure

  • Followed 165 Romanian orphans adopted in Britain
  • 111 were adopted
  • Before two years and all adopted by the age of four
  • Three groups were compared; those adopted before 6 months, adopted 6 months - 2 years and the third adopted after two years
  • Compared to 52 British children adopted before the age of 6 months
  • Physical, cognitive and social development were assessed at ages 4,7,11 and 15
• When adopted half the Romanians showed signs of mental retardation and the majority were malnourished.

  Average IQ:

  Adopted before 6 months was 102.

  6months - 2 years - 86

  After two years, 77

  Differences remained at 16 years of age. Those adopted after 6 months showed signs of disinhibited attachment whereas those adopted before 6 months rarely showed this attachment style, which showed that the effects are more severe if adopted after the age of 6 months.
• A03

  Rutter used a longitudinal study which allows us to have several follow ups to see changes and such studies require a lot of planning and waiting for results, but the results obtained will be valid and of huge benefit.

  • this study would ideally need further follow up and so the long term effects are still not clear of institutionalisation
  • another researcher found that institutionalisation led to a persistent variant of adult attention hyperactivity disorder, which reinforces that further follow up is needed
• A03

  The conditions in the place studied were awful. Romanian orphanages at the time are therefore not typical of all institutions and so we must be wary of generalising these findings to all institutions. There are unusual situational variables in this study as the orphanages had particularly poor standards of care and very low levels of intellectual stimulation. Therefore the negative effects may have specifically due to this rather than absence of maternal care.
• A03

  There are individual differences in how children cope with these settings and some children may not be affected as others.

  Rutter has suggested that some children may cope better as they received special attention, e.g. due to smiling more
• A03

  Value from this research as our understanding of the effects of institutionalisation have been enhanced. This has led to improvements in the way children are cared for in these places. Orphanages and children's homes now avoid large numbers of caregivers for a child and a key worker will be assigned to ensure a close bond is formed. This is helpful as children can develop normal attachments.