romanian orphan studies

• Who did the study on English and Romanian adoptees?

  Rutter
• How many Romanian orphans were adopted in Britain to see if good care could make up for poor experiences in institutions?

  165
• Physical, cognitive and what other development was assessed?


  Emotional
• At what ages were the orphans assessed at?

  4, 6, 11 and 15 years old
• A control group of how many British adoptees was used?

  52
• When the Romanian orphans arrived in Britain, half of them showed signs of mental retardation and most were.................


  Undernourished
• When they were 11, they all showed different rates of recovery which was related to their.......


  Age of adoption
• The findings were that the mean IQ of those adopted before 6 months was what compared with what for those adopted between 6 months and 2 years and what for those adopted after 2 years


  102 86 77
• The findings were that those adopted before 6 months did not display any negative sign. But, when adopted after 6 months, they showed what attachment style?


  Disinhibited attachment
• Disinhibited attachment is when behaviour is directed..........................

  attention seeking, clinginess, and social behaviour Indiscriminately towards everyone
• Zeanah et al 2005 conducted which study?


  The Bucharest Early Intervention Project
• In the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, what was the sample?

  95 children aged 12-31 months who had spent most of their lives in institutional care (90% on average)
• The children in the Bucharest Early Intervention Project were compared to a control group using what?

  Ainsworth's Strange Situation -> the control group was 50 children who had never lived in an institution
• Findings of the Bucharest Early Intervention project were that 74% of the control group was securely attached but only what percentage of the institutionalised group were securely attached.


  19%
• What percetage of the children in the Bucharest Early Intervention Project had a disorganised attachment?

  44%
• Compared to 20% of the control group, what percentage of institutionalised children in the Bucharest Early Intervention had a disinhibited attachment?


  44%
• Equally friendly and affectionate towards strangers and people you know.

  Could be due to having multiple caregivers during the sensitive period of attachment.


  Disinhibited attachment
• Those children who were adopted before 6 months caught up with the control group by age 4. However, damage to intellectual development can be damaged if adopted after 6 months. This is called....

  Mental Retardation
• Enhanced understanding of the effects of institutionalisation.

  Has led to improvements in the way children have been cared for e.g having one key worker

  Practically helps children's attachment

  Real life application
• Children were not randomly assigned to adopted parents

  Researchers did not have an input into adoption process, meaning chance could have put the more sociable children as the ones who were adopted early.

  Therefore, there's confounding variables


  Methodological issues
• Possible that conditions were so bad that results cannot be applied to other institutions.

  E.g. There were extremely low levels of intellectual stimulation

  Unusual situational variables means it's ungeneralisable


  Rare cases
• Too soon to see whether children suffered lasting effects of early experiences

  Children who were adopted early may start showing signs

  Effects of institutionalisation were not certain

  Long term effects are unclear
• in Romania 1990s

  the former president nicolai ceausescu required romanian women to have 5 children. many Romanian parents could not afford to keep their children and the children ended up in large orphanages with very poor conditions. after the revolution in 1989 many of the children were adopted - some by british parents.