Romanian Orphan Studies

• Institutionalisation


  a place where people live for long, continuous periods of time with very little emotional care
• English and Romanian Adoptee Study : Procedure


  Rutter et al followed a group of 165 Romanian orphans for many years, specifically those adopted by UK families. Aimed to investigate what extent good care could make up for poor early experiences. At ages 4, 6, 11, 15, 22-25 the orphans had their physical, emotional and cognitive development assessed.

  Control group of 52 British children adopted at the same time.
• ERA : Findings


  1/2 of the Romanian adoptees showed delayed intellectual development and were malnourished when arrived in UK. Children adopted before 6 months had a mean IQ of 102, but those adopted after 6 months had a mean IQ ranging from 86-77. These differences remained at age 16 (Beckett et al).

  Those adopted after 6 months showed 'disinhibited attachment' with attention-seeking behaviour and clinginess towards all adults.
• Bucharest Early Intervention Project

  Zeanah et al assessed attachment in 95 Romanian children aged 12-31 months who spent most of their lives in institutionalised care. Compared to a control group of 50 children who have never been in institutionalised care. Assessed using The Strange Situation and carers were asked about social behaviour.
• BEI : Findings


  Only 19% of institutionalised group were securely attached, compared to 74% of control group. 65% of institutionalised group were found to have disorganised attachment (Type D).
• Institutionalisation : Strength

  Rutter's research has real life applications with psychologists learning how to prevent the worst effects of institutionalised care e.g. key-worker systems have been implemented to provide emotional care for children to reduce disinhibited attachment.
• Institutionalisation : Strength

  There is a lack of confounding variables as previous studies into orphans involved traumatic experiences which resulted in institutionalisation. In the ERA, the children were 'handed over' because families couldn't afford to have them anymore, so results were accurately able to test institutionalisation
• Institutionalisation : Weakness


  The most recent data from the ERA is from children in their mid-20s, so we don't have any data to understand the long term effects of institutionalised care.