Romanian orphan studies: institutionalisation

• Who studies english and Romanian adoptees (ERA)

  Rutter 2011
• procedure of Rutter 2011

  • the researchers have followed a group of 165 Romanian orphans who experienced very poor conditions before being adopted in the UK
  • this longitudinal study has tested the extent to which good care can make up for poor early experiences in institutions
  • physical, cognitive and emotional Developement has been assessed at 4,6,11,15 and 22-25 years
  • the study also followed a control group of 52 adopted children from the UK
• findings of Rutter 2011

  Half the orphans showed delayed intellectual Developement when they came into the UK. At age 11, recovery rates were related to their age at adoption:

  • those adopted before 6 months had a mean IQ of 102
  • those adopted after 2 years had a mean IQ of 77

  these differences continued to be apparent at age 16 (Beckett 2010)

  frequency of disinhibited attachment related to the age at adoption:

  • apparent in children adopted after they were 6 months old: clinginess, attention seeking and indiscriminate affection from strangers
  • rare in children adopted before 6 months
• conclusion of Rutter 2011

  the finings support bowlbys view that there is a sensitive period in the Developement of attachments - a failure to form an attachment before the age of 6 months (and after the age of 2) appears to have long lasting effects
• who studied the Bucharest early intervention project (BEI)

  Zeannah 2005
• procedure of the Bucharest early intervention project

  • the researchers used the strange situation to assess attachment in 95 Romanian children aged 12-31 months who had spent most of their lives in institutional care
  • they were compared to a control group of 50 children who had never experienced institutional care
• findings of the Bucharest early intervention project

  • only 19% of the institutionalised group were securely attached (74% of controls)
  • 44% of the institutionalised group had characteristics of disinhibited attachment (20% of the controls)
• what are the effects of institutionalisation

  1. disinhibited attachment - such children tend to be equally friendly and affectionate towards people they know well or total strangers. this may be an adaptation to multiple caregivers
  2. damage to intellectual Developement - institutionalised children often show signs of intellectual disability. this effect is not as pronounced if the children are adopted before 6 months of age
• one strength of the Romanian orphan studies is real world application 


  results from this research have led to improvements in the way children are cared for in institutions (Langton 2006). children’s homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child. they have 1 or 2 key workers who play a central role. this means children in institutional care have a change to develop normal attachments and disinhibited attachment is avoided
• another strength is fewer confounding variables than other research


  there were many orphan studies before the Romanian orphans became available to study. these often involved children who experienced loss or trauma before they were institutionalised. neglect, abuse and breheavement meant it was hard to observe the effects of institutionalisation in isolation. the children were affected by multiple factors functioning as confounding variables. this means we can be faidly sure that differences in institutionally cared for children are the result of this type of care (high internal validity)
• another strength is fewer confounding variables than other research: counterpoint 


  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. This means that internal validity might not be between than in previous studies after all.
• one limitation is the lack of data on adult development 


  its too soon to say for certain whether children suffered permanent effects because we only have data on their Developement as far as their early 20s. it will be some time before we have information about some key research questions e.g. orphans ability to form and maintain romantic and parenting relationships. this means the Romanian orphan studies have not yet yielded their most important findings, some children may ‘catch up’