Romanian Orphan Studies

• Effects of Institutionalisation?

  An institution is a palace where people live for a long time, like orphanages.

  In Romania, the Ceausescu regime aimed to increase the population by not allowing abortion or contraception. Many families cold not look after their children, they were placed in orphanages where there was little physical or emotional care and no cognitive stimulation.

  When the regime collapsed in 1989 these children were found and many were adopted outside Romania.
• Privation occurs when children have never formed an attachment, this is more likely to happen in institutions if there is poor notional care although it can happen also outside.
• Rutter’s English Romanian Adoptee Study ( 2010 - 11 )

  A: to compare British and Romanian orphans and their development.

  P: 165 Romanian children ( previously lived in institutions ) of these 111 adopted before the age of 2 and 54 adopted by the age of 4. Compared to 52 British children adopted by age of 6 months. Children were tested regularly for physical, social and cognitive development at the ages of 4,6,11,15.
• • C : classed as being mentally retarded.

  By 4, most of the R children who had been adopted by the age of 6 months showed disinhibited attachment (the child doesn’t seem to prefer his/her parents over other people, even strangers, the child seeks comfort and attention from virtually anyone, without distraction. ) and had difficulties with peer relationships.
• C: this suggests that long-term consequences may be less severe than was thought if children have the opportunity to form attachments, however, when children do not form an attachment then the consequences are likely to be severe.
• Zeanah et al. (2005) assessed the attachment


  1. Measured attachment type using the strange situation

  2. Compared 95 children aged 12-31 months who had spent 90% of their life in an institution

  3. Compared to a control group who spent their life in a normal family
• 74% of the control group was found to be securely attached
• Only 19% of the institutionalised group was securely attached
• 65% of the institutionalised group were classified as having disorganised attachment
• Disorganised attachment


  Insecure attachment, the children will display an inconsistent pattern of behaviour, sometimes they show strong attachment other times they avoid the caregiver
• Evaluation:

  Individual differences - may not be true that all children who experience institutionalisation are unable to recover - research shows that some children are not as affected as others, Rutter’s suggested that it might be that some child’s received special attention in the institution - Bowlby’s study shows that individual differences matter, this means that it is not possible to conclude that institutionalisation inevitably leads to an inability to form attachments.
• Evaluation:

  Real-life Application - research by Bowlby and Robertson changed way that children were looked after in hospitals, specifically to early adoption, mothers who were going to give the baby up for adoption were encouraged to nurse the baby for a significant period of time, by the time baby was adopted the sensitive period for attachment may have passed, making it difficult to secure attachments with a new mother, most babies are now adopted during the first week and research shows that mothers and children are just as securely attached as non-adoptive families ( Singer et al, 1985 ).
• Evaluation:

  Deprivation is only one factor - limitation of research is that there may have been confounding variables, orphans faced with much more than emotional deprivation such as physical conditions which were appalling which impacted their health, lack of cognitive stimulation would also affect their development, for many institutionalised children, poor care in infancy is followed by poor subsequent care such as living in poverty and parental disharmony etc.( Turner and Lloyd, 1995 ).
• Disinhibited attachment - child doesn’t seem to prefer parent over other people, even strangers, seeks comfort and attention from virtually anyone, without distraction