Romanian orphan studies

• Rutter et al research

  Procedure

  followed a group of 165 Romanian orphans as part of the English and Romanian adoptee study

  the orphans had been adopted by UK families, the aim was to investigate if good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions 

  physical, cognitive and emotional development was assessed at 4, 6, 11, 15 and 22-25 years
• Rutter et al research

  Findings

  when first arriving in UK, half the adoptees showed signs of delayed intellectual development and the majority were severely malnourished

  at 11 the adopted children showed differential rates of recover that were related to their age of adoption

  the mean IQ of those adopted before 6 months = IQ of 102

  6months- 2 years = IQ of 86

  after 2 years = IQ of 77

  these differences remained at the age of 16
• Effects of institutionalisation 

  Disinhibited attachment - being equally friendly and affectionate towards familiar people and strangers, rutter explained this as an adaption to living with multiple caregivers during the sensitive period or attachment

  Intellectual disability - most children showed signs of intellectually disability, however damage can be recovered if child is adopted before 6 months.

  those adopted after 6 months showed disinhibited attachment
• One strength is the real world application to improve conditions for children growing up outside the family home.

  Improvement in the conditions experienced by children in the care system, for example, children’s homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child. More effort is made to accommodate children in foster care or get them adopted instead of institutional care because its now seen as an undesirable option for looked after children.
• strength

  the lack of confounding variables.

  Many of the children studied in orphanages had experienced varying degrees of trauma.

  However, the children from Romanian orphanages had in the main been handed over by loving parents that could not afford to keep them. This means that the results are much less likely to be confounded by other negative early experiences.

  however, studying children from Romanian orphanages might have introduced different confounding variables, the quality of care was remarkably poor with children receiving very little intellectual stimulation or comfort
• limitation

  lack of data on adult development.

  The oldest they have been studied is early to mid 20s. This means we do not currently have data to answer research questions about the long-term effects of early institutional care.

  We are unable to answer the lifetime effects of mental health problems and participants success in forming and maintaining adult romantic and parental relationships.

  it will take a long time to gather this data because of the longitudinal design of the study.

  this means it may be possible that late adopted children may catch up.