romanian orphan study

• An institution is a place where people live for a long time, they dont go home in the evening for example an orphanage. The Romanian orphans had little physical or emotional care and no cognitive stimulation.
• Privation occurs when children have never formed an attachment. This is more likely to happen in institutions if there is poor emotional care.
• Rutter et al followed 165 Romanian orphans who grew up in an institution with little emotional care. 111 were adopted by 2 years and 54 adopted by the age of 4. This was a longitudinal study assessing their emotional, physical and cognitive behaviour from the ages of 4, 6, 11 and 15. They were compared to a control group of 52 British adopted kids.
• Findings of Rutters study-

  At the time of adoption they were behind the British children in cognitive abilities and severely undernourished. Cognitively they were classed as low intellectual development. Those adopted before 6 months old has an iq of 102 while those adopted after 2 years had an iq of 77. Many of the children adopted after the age of 6 months showed disinhibited attachment and has difficulties with peer relationships.
• Disinhibited attachment is when the child doesnt seem to prefer their parents over other people. The child seeks attention and comfort from anyone. No stranger anxiety and very clingy and overly affectionate.
• Bucharest intervention project was proposed by Zeanah et al, they assessed the attachment in 95 children aged between 12-31 months who had spent most of their life in an institution and compared them to a control group of kids in a normal family. The attachment type was measured using the Strange situation. 74% of control group were securely attached while only 19% of the orphans were. 65% of this group were classified as disorganised attachment and disinhibited attachment to 44% of the orphans.
• A strength of the Romanian orphan study is their real life application to improve the conditions of children growing up in in institutions. studying the Romanian orphans has improved psychologists understandings of the effects of early institutional care and how to prevent the worst of these effects such as low intellectual development. This has led to improved living conditions for orphans such as having key workers who have a certain role in a childs emotional car. This has led to children growing up in institutions have a better chance to develop normal attachments.
• Another strength of Rutter et al research is that it is a longitudinal study. Their research took place over many years allowing them to assess the long term and short term effects of institutionalisation and the benefits from adoption. Therefore, the results of their research appear to be a valid representation of the effects of being placed in institutional care.
• A limitation is that it is possible that the conditions were so horrific that results cannot be applied to understand the impact on better quality of care in an institution. For example the Romanian orphans were subjected to harsh poor standards of care that led to having poor intellectual development and having difficulty forming relationships. This suggests that there are multiple factors involved which makes it difficult to interpret the results of the study solely being due to deprivation.