AO1 - Romanian Orphan Studies: Institutionalisation

• Institutionalisation - Refers to children spending a long period of time living outside of the family home within an institution, e.g. an orphanage. (1) This can result in a loss of personal identity and the child adopting the rules and norms of the institution (1) that can impair cognitive functioning. (1)
• Effects of institutionalisation:

  1. Reactive attachment disorder
  2. Disinhibited attachment
  3. Cognitive impairment
• Reactive attachment disorder - an extreme lack of sensitive responsiveness from a parent in early life can lead to a child growing up unable to trust or love others. They become isolated and very selfish and unable to understand the needs of others can become sociopathic without a conscience, they can have a lack of remorse
• Disinhibited attachment - children select attachment figures indiscriminately and behave in an overly familiar fashion with complete strangers, e.g. being friendly, this is unusual behaviour as young children would usually show signs of stranger anxiety. This is caused by long periods of institutional care in early life, children may adapt to having multiple caregiver (not seen enough to form secure attachments) during the critical period

  • institutionalised children often have other behavioural disorders, including attention seeking
• Cognitive impairment - a delay in intellectual development, an individual would have a low IQ and problems with concentration, moreover, they may have difficulty in learning new concepts and behaviours
• Rutter conducted research into the effects of insitutuionalisation
• Aim: to investigate whether loving and nurturing care could overturn the effects of institutionalisation the children had suffered in Romanian orphanages
• Sample: 111 Romanian orphans who were adopted into British families
• Procedure: longitudinal study which began in 1998. Physical, emotional and cognitive development were assessed at ages 4, 6, 11 and 15

  • age of adoption was the naturally occurring independent variable
  • children's development was the dependent variable
• Rutter studied 3 groups:

  1. adopted before 6 months old
  2. adopted between 6 months and 2 years old
  3. adopted after the age of 2 (late adoptees)
• Findings:

  • at the initial assessment (when they first arrived in UK) 50% of Romanian children showed signs of cognitive impairment and were severely undernourished
  • by the age of 4, the children were making very good recoveries however the late adoptees had much higher levels of disinhibited attachment, on the other hand, orphans adopted before 6 months were doing as well as the British adopted children
  • at the age of 11, the mean IQ for the late adoptees was lower (77) than those adopted before 6 months (had normal IQ of 102), showing cognitive impairment
• Conclusion: some negative effects of institutionalisation can be overcome by sensitive, nurturing care, more so if the adoption takes place earlier