Romanian Orphan Studies: Institutionalisation

• Institutionalisation = a term for the effects of living in an institutional setting.
• Rutter's research:


  He followed a group of 165 Romanian orphans for many years as part of the English and Romanian adoptee (ERA) study. The orphans had been adopted by families in the UK. They investigated the extent to which good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions.
• Rutter's research:


  Physical, cognitive and emotional development was assessed at ages 4, 6, 11, 15 and 22-25 years. A group of 52 children from the UK adopted around the same time served as a control group.
• Rutter's findings:


  At first, half the children showed signs of delayed intellectual development. At age 11, the adopted children showed differential rates of recovery that were related to their age of adoption.
• Rutter's findings:


  The mean IQ of children adopted before age 6 months was 102, compared to 86 for those adopted between 6 months and 2 years and 77 for those adopted after 2 years. These differences remained at age 16.
• Rutter's findings:


  Children adopted after they were 6 months showed signs of a particular attachment style called disinhibited attachment. Symptoms include attention-seeking, clinginess and social behaviour directed indiscriminately towards all behaviour (both familiar and unfamiliar). Disinhibited attachment was rarely displayed in children adopted before 6 months.
• Zeanah's research:


  Conducted the Bucharest early intervention (BEI) project, assessing attachment in 95 Romanian children aged 12-31 months who had spent most of their lives living in institutional care. They compared this to a control group of 50 children who had never lived in an institution.
• Zeanah's findings:


  The researchers found that 74% of the control group were classed as securely attached using the Strange Situation whereas only 19% of the institutional group were securely attached. 44% of the institutionalised children displayed disinhibited attachment as opposed to less than 20% of the controls.
• Rutter has explained disinhibited attachment as an adaption to living with multiple caregivers during the sensitive period.
• Rutter's findings:


  Most children showed signs of intellectual disability when they arrived in Britain. However, most of those adopted before age 6 months were able to catch up with the control group by age 4.
• One strength is studying the Romanian orphans has improved psychologists' understanding of the effects of early institutional care and how to prevent the worst of these effects. This has led to improvements in the conditions experienced by looked-after children. For example, children's homes now avoid having a large number of caregivers for each child and instead have a few key workers for each. Institutional care is also now seen as undesirable option and considerable effort is made to adopt or foster children. This means children in institutional care have a chance to develop normal attachments.
• Another strength is the lack of confounding variables. Many other studies of orphans had little control over the varying degrees of trauma the children had experienced. However, the children from Romanian orphanages had mostly been handed over by loving parents who could not afford to keep them. This means that other negative early experiences (e.g. abuse or neglect) will not confound the results.
• However, other confounding variable may have been introduced. For example, the quality of care in these institutions was remarkably poor. Children had very little intellectual stimulation or comfort. This means the harmful effects seen in studies of Romanian orphans may represent the effects of poor institutional care rather than institutional care per se.
• A limitation is the current lack of data on adult development. The latest data from the ERA study looked at children in their early 20s. This means we do not currently have data to answer some of the most interesting research questions about the long-term effects of institutionalisation (e.g. participants' success in forming and maintaining adult romantic and parental relationships). This means it will be some time before we know completely what the long-term effects are for the Romanian orphans. It is possible that late-adopted children may 'catch up'.