ROMANIAN ORPHAN STUDIES : INSTITUTIONALISATION

• RUTTER ET AL'S PROCEDURE

  • Studied 165 Romanian orphans part of an ERA study
  • Adopted by UK family - Investigate extent of good care making up for poor experience in an institution
  • Physical cognitive + emotional development assessed ages 4 , ,6 , 11 , 15 + 22 - 25 years
  • Compared to a control group of 52 adopted children from the UK
• RUTTER ET AL'S FINDINGS

  • Arrival : 50 % - signs of malnourishment +delayed intellect
  • 11 years - Different recovery rates related to adoption age
  • IQ : Adopted < 6 months = 102 , 6 mths - 2 yrs = 86 , >2 years = 77
  • Differences remained at 16
  • Adopted > 6 months - DISINHIBITED ATTACHMENT (explain)
• ZEANAH ET ALS PROCEDURE (2005)

  • Conducted Bucharest early intervention (BEI) project
  • Assessed attachment of 95 Romanians ages 12 - 31 months ( spent most lives in institution)
  • Attachment measured using strange situation
  • Carers also asked about unusual social behaviours eg attention seeking from adults - disinhibited attachment
• ZEANAH ET AL'S FINDINGS (2005)

  • 74 % of the control group = secure attachment
  • 19 % of institutional group = secure
  • DISINHIBITED ATTACHMENT - 44 % - institutional , 20 % -control
• EFFECTS OF INSTITUTIONALISATION

  • Damage to intellectual development recovered if adopted before 6 months
  • Disinhibited attachment - friendly to both familiar people and strangers (no stranger anxiety)
• S1 - Application to improve conditions for children in institutional care

  E - Study ↑ understanding of early institutional care effects + preventing them (Langton 2006) - Condition improvements - One or 2 ' key workers ' + not lots of caregivers - Effort for adoption/ foster care

  L - Disinhibited attachment = avoided + chance developing normal attachments
• S2 - LACK OF CONFOUNDING VARIABLES

  E - Studies before - children experienced trauma - hard to remove effects of neglect from in care - Romanian orphan - had loving parents - couldn't afford to keep them

  L - ↑ internal validity - not confounded by other negative experiences
• COUNTER TO S2 - Other confounding variables

  E - Poor care quality - little comfort / intellectual stimulation received

  L - Harmful effects seen represents poor institutional care , not all care
• LIM 2 - No data on adult development

  E - Latest data from ERA study - early to mid 20s - no current data - Unanswered questions of long term effects ( mental health problems)

  • Long time to gather data - longitudinal study

  L - Time before completely know the long term effects