7 - Institutional Care Flashcards
Define institutionalisation
When a child’s living arrangements are outside of the family e.g in children’s homes, hostels etc
This could be due to inadequate parental care or other circumstances, such as civil war.
What research was done into institutionalisation?
165 Romanian children who spent their early lives in Romanian institutions and those suffered from the effects of institutionalisation were studied.
11 were adopted before the age of 2, and 54 were adopted by the age of four.
They were tested at regular intervals ( ages 4,6,11 and 15) to assess their physical, cognitive and social development.
Information had also been gathered in interviews with parents and teachers.
Their progress was compared to a control group of 52 British children adopted in the U.K. before the age of 6 months.
What were the results of the study?
At the time of adoption, all the Romanian orphans lagged behind their British counterparts on all measures of psychical, cognitive and social development.
They were smaller, weighed less and were classified as mentally retarded. By the age of 4, the Romanian children adopted before the age of 6 months had caught up with their British counterparts.
However, a substantial minority of children adopted after the age of 6 months still had significant deficits. Many showed disinhibited attachments and had problems with peer relationships.
What do the results of the study suggest?
It suggests that the long term consequences of institutionalisation may be less severe than once thought if children have the opportunity to form attachments.
However, when children do not form attachments then the consequences are likely to be severe.
What are the advantages ?
Other psychologists also found evidence of disinhibited attachment in children raised in institutions. They compared 135 Romanian who had spent around 90% of their lives in an institution to a control group who had never been in an institution. The children were aged 12-31 months and were assessed using the strange situation. The institutionalised children showed signs of disinhibited attachment.
This research led to changes in the way children are adopted. In the past mothers were encouraged to nurse their children for as long as possible before giving them up for adoption. Today most babies are adopted within the first week of their birth so they don’t form attachments that are broken.
It is a longitudinal study so we can determine the long term effects of institutionalisation.
What are the negatives?
There are individual differences between children that affect how strongly they are affected by institutionalisation. 60 children under the age of 4 who has tuberculosis so stayed in hospital for a long time were investigated. Nurses didn’t provide emotional care and parents could only visit once a week. 63% of the children were maladjusted in adolescent but 37% suffered no ill effects at all.
The Romanian orphans were faced with much more than emotional deprivation. The physical conditions were appalling and there was a lack of cognitive stimulation. It is likely that long term damage only occurs when there are multiple risk factors.
It was found that the physical effects of institutionalisation are not permanent. A longitudinal study of 36 Romanian orphans adopted to families in Canada was conducted. The adopted orphans were physically smaller than a matched control group at age four but this difference had disappeared by ten. The same was true for psychological health.
List the effects of institutionalisation
Physical underdevelopment
Intellectual underfunctioning
Disinhibited attachment
Poor parenting
Expand on physical underdevelopment as an effect of institutionalisation
Children in institutional care are usually physically small. Research shows a lack of emotional care rather than poor nourishment is the cause of what has been called deprivation dwarfism.
Expand on intellectual under-functioning as an effect of institutionalisation
Cognitive development is also affected by emotional deprivation. It was found that children placed in institutions that only looked after them physically scored poorly on intelligence tests. However when the same children were transferred to a different institution which have them emotional care their IQ scores improved by almost 30 points.
Expand on disinhibited attachment as an effect of institutionalisation
This is a form of insecure attachment where children do not discriminate between people they choose as attachment figures.
Such children will treat near strangers with inappropriate familiarity and may be attention - seeking.
Expand on poor parenting as an effect of institutionalisation
50 women who had been raised in an institution were compared to 50 women who had not.
When the women were in their 20s those raised in an institution were experiencing extreme difficulties acting as parents.
For example, many of the women raised in institution had children who had spent a significant amount of time in care.
