Romanian orphan studies

• How do we research the effects of institutionalisation ?

  One way to examine the effect of maternal deprivation and the effects of institutionalisation is to look at Romanian orphan studies. The English and Romanian Adoptee Study (Rutter et al., 2011) has followed 165 Romanian orphans adopted in the UK for many years. Their physical, emotional and cognitive development has been assessed at a variety of ages. 
• what did rutter find about the effects of institutionalisation? Part 1

  Initially, all showed delayed intellectual development. At 11, the mean IQ score for those adopted before the age of 6 months was 102, compared with those adopted between 6 months and 2 years, who had a mean IQ score of 86, those adopted after 2 years had a mean score of 77.
• what did rutter find about the effects of institutionalisation? part 2

  Those adopted after the age of 6 months showed signs of a particular attachment style called disinhibited attachment. Symptoms include; being clingy and attention seeking directed to all adults even strangers. Those adopted after 6 months did not show disinhibited attachment.
• what did zeanah find about the effects of institutionalisation?

  The Bucharest Early Intervention project (Zeanah et al., 2005) assessed 95 Romanian orphans aged 12-31 months. Only 19% were classified as securely attached and 44% were classified as disinhibited. This was in comparison to a control group where 74% were securely attached and only 20% classed as disinhibited. Both of these studies demonstrate the impact of institutionalisation on development and attachment.
• what was concluded from studies into the effect of institutionalisation?

  Rutter suggested this could be due to children having multiple carers and not being able to form one primary attachment which would have enabled a secure attachment. It seems that delays in intellectual and emotional development can be overcome but only if children were adopted before the age of six months.
• what are the strengths of Romanian orphan studies?

  real world applications

  internal validity
• elaborate on RWA as a strength of Romanian orphan studies?

  A strength of the research into institutionalisation is that it has real world application. For example, the research has led to improvements in how we care for looked after children. I.E assigning key workers to those in children's’ homes and a preference for children to be placed in foster care rather than institutions. Therefore, this research has given some children the opportunity to develop a secure attachment type who otherwise may have developed a disinhibited attachment.
• elaborate on high internal validity as a strength of Romanian orphan studies?

  A strength of ROS is that there were few confounding variables that may have affected the research. Many studies previous to the ROS were of children who had suffered trauma or abuse before entering the institute and so it was impossible to separate the effects of this from just being institutionalised. However, most RO’s came form loving families who could not afford to keep them therefore the results would not have been confounded by those other variables, increasing the internal validity of the studies.
• what are the weaknesses of Romanian orphan studies?

  A weakness of the Romanian orphan studies is that latest data only assess the orphans in their 20s. We do not know yet the long term effects of institutionalisation or whether the children adopted after 6 months may catch up with those who were adopted before 6 months for example, mental health issues in adulthood. Therefore, we will need to revisit this in the future to see the true impact of their early institutionalisation and so this will take time.