romanian orphan studies: institonalisation

• Rutter's Romanian orphan study - procedure

  • ERA study
  • followed 165 Romanian orphans for many years
  • orphans had been adopted by UK families
  • aim - investigate the extent to which good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions
  • physical, emotional, cognitive development assessed
  • control group of 52 UK adopted children
• Rutter's Romanian orphan study - ages

  assessed at ages 4, 6, 11, 15 and 22-25 years
• Rutter's Romanian Orphan Study - First arrival

  Showed signs of delayed intellectual development and were undernourished
• Rutter's Romanian orphan study - 11 years

  Showed differential rates of recovery that were related to their age of adoption.

  • Mean IQ of children adopted before 6 months: 103
  • adopted between 6 months - 2 years: 86
  • adopted after 2 years: 77
• Rutter's Romanian orphan study - 16 years old


  Differences remained from the 11-year-old assessments.
• Rutter's Romanian orphan study - 15 and 22-25 year olds

  ADHD became a common factor in the samples.
• Rutter's Romanian orphan study attachment findings

  • difference in outcome related to whether adoption took place before or after 6 months
  • after 6 months: disinhibited attachment (attention-seeking, clinginess and social behaviour directed towards all adults)
  • before 6 months: rarely displayed this attachment type
• Zeanah's Romanian orphan study - procedure

  • conducted Bucharest early intervention project
  • assessed attachment in 95 Romanian children aged 12-31 months who spent most their lives in institutional care
  • control group - 50 children who had never lived in an institution
  • measured using Strange Situation
  • carers asked about unusual social behaviour (clingy, attention seeking behaviour directed towards all adults) - tested disinhibited attachment
• Zeanah's Romanian Orphan study - findings

  • 74% of control group classed as securely attached
  • 19% of institutional group classed as securely attached
  • 44% of institutional group fit description of disinhibited attachment
  • 20% of control group fit description of disinhibited attachment
• Effects of institutionalisation -

  Disinhibited attachment

  Intellectual disability
• Disinhibited attachment 


  Being equally friendly and affectionate towards familiar people and strangers.

  Unusual - most children show stranger anxiety

  Rutter - it is an adaptation to living with multiple caregivers during the sensitive period for attachment formation.

  So in poor-quality institutions child may have 50 carers but won't spend enough time with them to form a secure attachment
• Intellectual disability 


  Rutter - most children showed signs of this when they arrived in Britain. Most of those adopted before 6 months caught up with the control group by 4.

  Damage to intellectual development can be recovered provided adoption takes place before 6 months.
• AO3 Romanian orphan studies - real-world application

  • improved psychologists' understanding of the effects of early institutional care and how to prevent the worst side effects.
  • led to improvement in conditions experienced by children in care system.
  • children tend to have one or two ' key workers' who play a key role in their emotional care
  • institutional care is now seen as undesirable - favour to accommodate children in foster care.
  • So now children in institutional care have a chance to develop normal attachments
• AO3 Romanian orphan studies - Fewer confounding variables

  Majority of children from Romanian orphanages had been handed over by loving parents who could not afford to keep them.

  Contrasting, the earlier adoption studies where children experienced early trauma.

  Results were less likely to be confounded by other negative early experiences. Higher internal validity.
• AO3 Romanian orphan studies - May have other confounding variables

  Quality of care: poor, received little intellectual stimulation or comfort

  Harmful effects seen may represent the effect of poor institutional care rather than general institutional care
• AO3 Romanian orphan studies - Lack of adult data

  ERA study: only followed up to mid-20s which means we don't have answers to the long-term effects of early institutional care. Such as participants success in forming and maintaining adult romantic and parental relationships.

  Study is longitudinal.
• AO3 Romanian orphan studies - Social sensitivity

  Results show that late-adopted children have poor developmental outcomes.

  Results have been published while kids are growing up meaning adults may have lowered their expectations of the adopted children. Leading to self-fulfilling prophecy.

  However, much has been learned from the Romanian orphan studies that may benefit future institutionalised children.