institutionalisation

• The findings of Romanian Orphan studies has enhanced our understanding of the effects of institutionalisation on attachment. It has led to improvements in the way children are cared for (Langton, 2006).

  For example, orphanages and children homes now ensure that a smaller number of people play a central role for the child so that they have a chance to develop normal attachments.

  This supports the external validity of the research as it has beneficial application to real life.
• Another strength of the study is that there were fewer extraneous variables in comparison to other studies where the infants involved had experienced alot of trauma before they were institutionalised and so they were dealing with multiple factors which functioned as confounding participant variables.

  This is a strength because the findings have high internal validity and a cause and effect relationship is more likely to be established.
• However, a weakness of the orphan studies is that they were not typical of real life situations. Romanian orphanages had particularly poor standards of care and extremely low levels of intellectual stimulation.

  This is a limitation as the unusual situational variables means the study lacks generalisability.
• One of the findings from the Romanian orphan study was that during the last assessment, a lower number of children had disinhibited attachment.

  This may mean that the effects of institutionalisation do fade over time if children have good quality emotional care. This undermines the Romanian study which implies that the effects may be irreversible as it may be that ex-institutional children need more time than normal to mature sufficiently to cope with relationships.
• This suggests that the conclusions of the orphan studies may lack validity and so it cannot provide a strong support for the effects of institutionalisation.