The Effects of Institutionalisation - ERA Study

• What are the effects of institutionalisation?

  • Disinhibited Attachment
  • Mental Retardation
  • Physical underdevelopment/deprivation dwarfism - Gardner
  • Poor parenting - Harlow, Quinton
• What is disinhibited attachment?

  A typical effect of spending time in an institution. They are equally friendly and affectionate towards people they know well or who are strangers that they have just met. This is highly unusual behaviour; most children in their second year show stranger anxiety. Rutter explained disinhibited attachment as an adaptation to living with multiple caregivers during the sensitive period for attachment formation. In poor quality institutions like those in Romania a child might have 50 carers none of whom they see enough to form a secure attachment.
• What is mental retardation?

  In Rutter's study most chilren showed signs of retardation when they arrived in Britain. However, most of those adopted before they were six months old caught up with the control group by age 4.
• What is physical underdevelopment?

  Children in institutional care are usually physically small. Research (Gardner) has shown that lack of emotional care (rather than poor nourishment) is the cause of deprivation dwarfism.
• What is poor parenting?

  Harlow showed that this is supported by Quinton who compared a group of 50 women who had been reared in institutions (children's home) with a control group of women who had been reared at home. When the women were in their 20's, it was found that the ex-institutional were experiencing difficulties acting as parents. For example, more of the ex-institutional women had children who had spent time in care.
• What made up for the physical and intellectual problems suffered at first by the Romanian adoptees?

  Like emotional development, damage to intellectual development as a result of institutionalisation can be recovered by adoption before the age of six months - the age at which attachments form (Schaffer and Emerson)