institutionalisation

• romanian orphanage background-

  • former president forbade women under 40 with less than 4 kids to use contraception or have an abortion
  • many couldn’t afford to keep their children and they ended up in huge orphanages in very poor conditions
  • after the 1989 revolution, many of the children were adopted
• Rutter study on english and romanian adoptees

  procedure- group of 165 Romanian orphans adopted in britain - wanted to test to what extent good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions. Physical, cognitive and emotional development assessed at age 4, 6, 11 and 15
• Rutter - english and romanian adoptees findings

  upon arrival in the UK half of them showed signs of mental retardation and majority were severely undernourished

  at age 11 the mean IQ for those adopted before 6 months was 102, between 6 months - 2 years it was 86, for those after 2 years it was 77
• what were the conclusions of Rutter?

  the findings support Bowlby’s view that there is a sensitive period in the development of attachments and a failure to form an attachment before the age of 6 months appears to have long lasting effects
• what was the procedure of Zeanah et al - the bucharest early intervention project?

  95 children aged 12-31 months show had spent most of their lives in institutional care. Compared to a control group of 50 children that had never been institutionalised. Attachment type was measured using the strange situation and carers were asked about unusual social behaviours
• what were the findings of Zeanah et al?

  74% of control were securely attached

  19% of institutionalised were securely attached

  65% of institutionalised disorganised attachment

  44% institutionalised were disinhibited
• what are the effects of institutionalisation?

  physical under development

  damage to intellectual development

  disinhibited attachment

  poor parenting
• explain the effect of institutionalisation: physical under development

  Gardner found the lack of emotional care lead to deprivation dwarfism
• explain the effect of institutionalisation: damage to intellectual development

  cognitive development is affected by emotional deprivation (Can be reversed if adopted before 6 months)
• explain the effect of institutionalisation: disinhibited attachment

  a form of insecure attachment, a child will treat a stranger with inappropriate familiarity and may be attention seeking
• explain the effect of institutionalisation: poor parenting

  Quinton compared a group of 50 women brought up in institutions with a control group. When in their 20’s women reared in institutions experience extreme difficulties acting as parents - their children went on to spend time in care
• strength - real world application

  • today most babies are to be adopted in the first couple of weeks of birth as research shows children and adoptive mothers just as securely attached as non adoptive families
  • it has helped in children’s homes to make sure that the caregiver to child ratio is smaller
• strength - fewer confounding variables than other research

  • there were many orphan studies before the Romanian orphans became available to study
  • neglect, abuse and bereavement made it hard to observe the effects of institutionalisation
  • the children were affected by these confounding variables. Rutter's study has fewer confounding variables
• weakness - confounding variables continued

  However, Romanian orphan studies may have new confounding variables because quality of care was so poor making it hard to separate effects of institutional care from those of poor institutional care
• weakness - lack of data on adult development

  • it is too soon to say for certain wether children suffered permanent effects because we only have data on their development up to their early 20s
  • due to when this took place it will be some time before there is info about some key questions
• weakness + strength - social sensitivity

  • late adopted children were shown to have low IQ - this might subsequently affect how they are treated by parents or teachers
  • HOWEVER much has been learned from the Romanian orphan studies that might benefit future institutionalised or potentially institutionalised children SO THE POTENTIAL BENEFITS OUTWEIGH THEIR SOCIAL SENSITIVITY