Discuss the effects on initialisation - Romanian orphans

• What was Rutters procedure

  • followed 165 Romanian orphans adopted in the UK for many years.
  • Their physical, emotional and cognitive development has been assessed
  • all showed delayed intellectual development.
  • At 11, the mean IQ adopted before the age of 6 months = 102
  • those adopted between 6 months and 2 years = mean 86
  • those adopted after 2 years = 77.
  • adopted after the age of 6 months = disinhibited attachment.
  • Symptoms = being clingy, attention seeking to all adults even strangers.
• what ages did rutter assess the orphans for psychological, emotional and cognitive development

  4,6,11 and 15
• what is mental retardation


  • in Rutters study most showed signs of this when they arrived in Britain.
  • but most of these caught up to the control group by the age of 4, if they were adopted before 6 months
• real life application

  • the research has led to improvements in how we care for looked after children.
  • I.E assigning key workers to those in children's’ homes and a preference for children to be placed in foster care rather than institutions.
  • Therefore, this research has given some children the opportunity to develop a secure attachment type who otherwise may have developed a disinhibited attachment.
• few confounding variables


  • A strength - few confounding variables that may have affected the research.
  • Many studies previous to the Romanian orphan studies were of children who had suffered trauma or abuse before entering the institute = impossible to separate the effects of this from just being institutionalised.
  • However, most Romanian orphans came form loving families who could not afford to keep them = the results would not have been confounded by those other variables
  • increasing the internal validity of the studies.
• we do not know the long term effects


  • A weakness of the Romanian orphan studies is that latest data only assess the orphans in their 20s.
  • We do not know yet the long term effects of institutionalisation or whether the children adopted after 6 months may catch up with those who were adopted before 6 months for example, mental health issues in adulthood.
  • Therefore, we will need to revisit this in the future to see the true impact of their early institutionalisation and so this will take time.