Romanian orphan studies

• what are the effects of institutionalisation?

  disinhibited attachment and damage to intellectual development.
• disinhibited attachment

  the child is equally friendly and affectionate towards people they know well or who are strangers. this may be an adaptation to multiple caregivers.
• damage to intellectual development

  institutionalised children often show signs of mental retardation. this effect is not as pronounced if the children are adopted before 6 months of age.
• what are the two key studys related to Romanian orphan studies

  rutter et al. and zeanah et al.
• procedure of rutter et al.: English and Romanian adoptee study

  • followed a group of 165 Romanian orphans who experienced very poor conditions before being adopted in britain
  • the longitudinal study tested the extent to which good care can make up for poor early experiences in institutions.
  • physical, cognitive and emotional development assessed at 4, 6, 11 and 15 years
  • study also followed a control group of 52 adopted British children
• what did rutter et al.'s study show about metal retardation?

  half the orphans showed mental retardation when they came to the UK. at age 11 recovery rates were related to their age of adoption:

  • adopted before six months: mean IQ of 102
  • adopted between six months and two years: mean IQ of 86
  • adopted after two years: mean IQ of 77
• what did rutter et al.'s study show about frequency of disinhibited attachment?

  • it was apparent in children adopted after they were six months old: clinginess, attention-seeking and indiscriminate affection to strangers.
  • rare in children adopted before the age of six months.
• what did rutter et al.'s study support?

  the findings support the view that there is a sensitive period in the development of attachments- a failure to form an attachment before the age of six months appears to have long-lasting effects.
• procedure of zeanah et al.: Bucharest early intervention project

  • used the strange situation to assess attachment in 95 children ages 12-31 months who had spent most of their lives in institutional care
  • compared to a control group of 50 children who had never experienced institutional care
• findings & conclusions of zeanah et al.: Bucharest early intervention project

  • only 19% of the institutionalised group were securely attached
  • 65% classified with disorganised attachment.
• strength: important practical applications

  results from this research have led to developments in the way children are cared for in institutions. children's homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child. they have one or two 'key workers' who play a central role. this gives the child a chance to develop normal attachments and avoid disinhibited attachments, immensely valuable in practical terms.
• limitation: issues with generalisability in Romanian studies

  the conditions of the orphanages are so bad that the results may not apply to institutional care or general situations of deprivation. Romanian orphanages had particularly poor standards of care, especially when kit came to forming any relationship with the children. the unusual situational variables mean the studies may lack generalisability.
• limitation: children not randomly allocated to conditions

  rutter et al. didn't interfere with the adoption process, so those children adopted early may have been more sociable ones, a confounding variable. to control for such variables, the Bucharest early intervention study did randomly assign the orphans to institutional care or fostering. this is methodologically better because it removes the confounding variable of some children being selected by parents, but it raises ethical issues.
• limitation: long-term effects of early experience not yet clear

  it is too soon to say for certain whether children suffered long or short term effects because the adopted orphans have only been followed into their mid-teens. 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