AO3 Institutionalisation

• What kind of real world application does the Romanian orphan studies have?

  Policy changes were made to benefit children in institutions. For example, institutions now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child and instead now have one or two ’key workers; who play a central role in their emotional care
• Romanian orphan studies had less what kind of variables compared to other orphan studies?

  Participant extraneous/confounding variables
• Why were there less extraneous variables in the Romanian orphan studies?

  Most children in these studies were placed in institutions from birth, meaning they have not suffered from abuse, neglect or other trauma. This leads to higher internal validity as the effects of institutionalisation could be studied in isolation
• Why were the Romanian orphanages not typical?

  There were exceptional circumstances in the Romanian orphanages, including poor care quality and low intellectual stimulation levels. Thus, it is difficult to generalise the results of the studies in Romanian orphanages to other situations of deprivation
• The long term effects of institutionalistation are not yet clear. It may be that the children who spent longer in institutions and currently lag behind in intellectual development or display attachment difficulties may still ‘catch up’ as adults. Equally, early-adopted/ fostered children who appear to have no issues now may experience emotional problems as adults