Romanian Orphan Studies

• Institutionalisation-The effects of spending significant time in an orphanage or children's home.
• Rutter et. al followed 165 orphans in a longitudinal study, and used 52 children from the UK as a control group

  • he tested IQ at 4, 6, 11 and 15
  • mean IQ of those adopted before 6 months- 102, between 6 months- 2 years= 86, after 2 years=77
  • children adopted AFTER 6 months showed signs of disinhibited attachment, but those before didn't
• Effects of Institutionalisation-

  • disinhibited attachment- low stranger anxiety, affectionate towards familiar people and strangers,
  • low IQ- if they were adopted before the age of 6 months, they "caught up" with the control group, but those after sowed signs of intellectual disability- Rutter's study
  • Social relations- those adopted after 6 months showed signs of autism such as atypical eye contact and low imitation.
• Zeanah et al conducted the Strange situation on 95 Romanian orphans aged 12-31 months who had spent 90% of their life in institutions

  • 74% of control group securely attached
  • 195 orphans securely attached
  • 44% of orphan group showed signs if disinhibited attachment
  • less than 20% of control group showed signs of disinhibited attachment.
• one weakness of Romanian orphan studies is the lack of adult data. the most recent piece if data is orphans in their 20s. Therefore we are unsure if it has had a longitudinal effect on their lives.
• One strength is the lack of cofounding variables. Although children in orphanages experience different levels of neglect abuse or trauma, in this situation majority of orphans were given up by loving parents who just could not afford to take care of them.
• one weakness is the institutions had very poor care for children. this means that it may not be the effect of institutions, but the effect of poorly executed institutions, therefore the data also cannot be generalised.
• Edward Sonya Barke found that a good proportion of Romanian orphans had issues later in adulthood such as unemployment or homelessness. This supports that institutionalisation has an effect later in life. CA: most of this evidence is from orphan's who are now in their 20s, so unsure of longitudinal effects