Romanian orphan studies

• Effects of institutionalisation

  Disinhibited attachment: child is equally friendly to people they know well and to a stranger.

  Damage to intellectual development: show signs of mental retardation. This effect isnt pronounced if adopted before 6 months.
• Study: Rutter (2011) -English and Romanian adoptee study


  Followed group of 165 Romanian orphans who experienced v poor conditions before adopted in England.

  Longitudinal study- tested the extent to which good care could make up for poor early experiences. Physical, cognitive and emotional development assessed at 4,6,11&15 years.

  Followed control group of 52 adopted British children.
• Rutters findings


  1/2 of orphans showed mental retardation when came to uk. At age 11 recovery rates were related to their age of adoption.

  Adopted before 6 months- mean IQ 102

  6 months- 2 years- mean IQ 86

  After 2 years- mean IQ 77
• Frequency of disinhibited attachment related to age of adoption

  • Children adopted after 6 months old= clinginess, attention seeking and indiscriminate affection to strangers.
  • Rare in children adopted before 6 months

  Supports view there is a sensitive period during development- failure to form an attachment before 6 months has long lasting effects
• Bucharest early intervention project


  Used strange situation to asses attachment in 95 children aged 12-31 months who spent most of their lives in institutional care.

  Compared to 50 children who had never experienced institutional care.

  19% institutionalised group = secure

  65% classed as disorganised attachment
• ✔️important practical applications

  Led to improvements in the way children are cared for in institutions. Children's homes now avoid having a large number of caregivers for each child. They have one or two key workers who play a central role. Gives child chamber to develop normal attachments and avoid disinhibited attachments, immensely valuable in practical terms.
• ✔️fewer confounding variables than other research

  There were many orphan studies before the Romanian orphans. These were children who experienced loss or trauma before institutionalised. Neglect and abuse meant it was hard to observe the effect of institutionalisation in isolation. As the children were affected my multiple factors acting as confounding variables. With the Roman orphans don't have confounding variables as they were abandoned at birth. Increases the internal validity.
• ✖️issues with generalisability


  The condition of the orphanages were so bad the results may not apply to general situations of deprivation or institutional care. Romanian orphanages had particularly bad standards of care, especially when it came to forming relationships with the children. The unusual situational variables mean the studies may lack generalisability.
• ✖️children were not randomly assigned to conditions

  Rutted didn't interfere with adoption process a those adopted may have been more sociable which is a confounding variable. To control for such variables, the Bucharest Early Intervention study did randomly assign the orphans to institutional care or fostering. This is methodologically better because it removes the confounding variables of some children being selected by parents but raises serious ethical issues
• ✖️long term effects of early experience are not yet clear


  Too soon to say if they have suffered short/ long term effects as they've only been followed into their mid teens. The children who spent longer in institutions and currently lag behind in IQ they may catch up as adluts. Also the ones early adopted may experience emotional problems as adults.