Institutionalisation: Romanian Orphans

• A01: Institutionalisation

  The effects of living in an institutional setting

  • Orphanage
  • Mental hospital
• A01: Romanian Orphan's Research - Rutter et al

  Wanted to investigate the extent to which good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions

  Procedure:

  • Followed 165 Romanian orphans who'd been adopted by British families
  • Assessed emotional, physical, cognitive development at ages 4/6/11/15/22-25 years old
  • Compared to control group of 52 British children who'd been adopted

  Findings:

  • Half of Romanian children showed delayed intellectual development at first
  • Mean IQ = 102 for Romanians adopted before 6 months
  • Mean IQ = 86 for Romanians adopted between 6 months to 2 yrs
  • Mean IQ = 77 for Romanians adopted after 2 years
  • ADHD more common in 15 and 22-25 year olds
  • Those adopted after 6 mths showed Disinhibited Attachment (attention-seeking, clinginess, indiscriminate social behaviours directed towards anyone)
  • Those adopted before 6 months didn't show Disinhibited Attachment
• A01: Romanian Orphan's Research - Zeanah et al

  Procedure:

  • Assessed attachment in 95 Romanian orphans aged 12-31 mths who'd spent of their lives in institutional care
  • Compared to control group, 50 children never institutionalised
  • Attachment types measured through Strange Situation

  Findings:

  • Found 74% of control group securely attached
  • Only 19% of Romanians securely attached
  • 44% Romanians displayed disinhibited attachment
  • Less than 20% of control group displayed disinhibited attachment
• A01: Effects of Institutionalisation

  Institutionalisation has 2 main effects on children:

  
  

  Disinhibited Attachment:

  An abnormal social behaviour in children where child has little to no fear in familiar/unfamiliar adults, will actively approach them

  • Children living with multiple carers in poor quality institutional settings unable to form secure attachment

  Intellectual Disability:

  Damage to intellectual functioning and adaptive behaviour

  • Rutter: most children showed intellectual disability when first arrived
  • Those adopted before 6 months caught up with control group by 4 years old
  • Intellectual disability can be recovered if adoption takes place before 6 months where attachment can form
• A03: Strength - Research has real-world application to help improve children growing up outside of their homes

  • Romanian orphans studies help psychologists understand the effects of early institutional care / how to prevent effects of intitutionalisation
  • Has helped improvements of children in care
  • Children have central carers who play a role in emotional care
  • Means that those in institutional care can now have a chance at a normal development in attachment rather than developing disinhibited attachment
• A03: Strength - Research has few confounding variables

  • Romanian orphans were given to institutions by loving families who couldn't afford to keep their children
  • Unlike other studies where children in institutions may have suffered from previous trauma so, it is hard to distinguish between previous negative effects and poor quality of institutional care
  • So, the results of Romanian orphans studies had very little confounding variables from other negative early experiences in orphans
• A03: Limitation - Research on Romanian orphans has a lack of data on adult development

  • The latest data we have is Rutter's study looked at adopted orphans aged 22-25 years old
  • We do not have current data to identify the long-term effects of early institutional care and the development of attachment in later relationships in adulthood
  • Will take a long time to gather data due to longitudinal design of the study
  • Means hat will take ages to know the complete long-terms effects for the Romanian orphans