Attachment- Effects Of Institutionalisation Flashcards
Explain Hodges & Tizard’s Longitudinal Study (1989)
Compared children who were institutionalised with those brought up at home
It suggested that privation can have long-lasting effects on social behaviour
However it also found that if children are given a second chance In a caring environment (being adopted) they can recover some of the lost ground in their social development
This was a study of 65 British working-class children who had been raised in a good quality residential nursery from just after birth until 2 or more years of age. The children were assessed at age 4.5, 8 and 16and compared with a similar group of children who had been raised at home.
The children had little opportunity to form close attachments to their caregivers. There was a high turnover of staff, and the children were looked after by a very large number of carers. In addition, the nursery discouraged strong attachment between staff and children.
What did the follow up studies in Hodges and Tizard’s study show ?
Most of the children were adopted or restored to their biological families between the ages of 2 and 7.
Follow-up studies revealed that most of the adopted children formed close attachments with their adoptive parents; they went on o do better at school and better in life generally though some of them were described by their teachers as attention seeking and difficult
The children who returned to their biological parents did not do so well, probably because they returned to families in various kinds of difficulties. They often failed to form close attachments, either with their parents or peers at school.
They too, exhibited behavioural difficulties in school. The pattern was repeated when the children were assessed at 16
What did hodges and Tizard’s conclude about early institutional care ?
They concluded firstly that early institutional car and the lack of close attachments had not had drastically damaging effects predicted by bowlby.
Secondly the quality of care in an institution can have very positive effects on children’s cognitive development.
Thirdly attachment can be made after the age of 2, but the strength of the attachment depends on the amount of love and care given by the parents, real or adoptive.
Fourthly, privation may have some lasting effects in the case of some children, which continue at least to the age 16.
Fifthly, the long term effects of privation are not inevitable.
Explain Wayne Dennis (1973) study?
It was a study on low quality care in institutions. He studied a group of children raised in a very poor orphanage in Lebanon.
The children entered the orphanage shortly after birth and were reared in conditions of great privation with little human contact and a severe lack of stimulation, the harmful effects of which were readily apparent after even one year.
They were cared for by looked after by “caregivers” who themselves had been raised in the orphanage until the age of six.
The caregivers provide the children with basic physical care- they bathed, dressed, changed and fed them. However, they rarely spoke to or played with them- babies were left to lie in their cribs all day. Once they could walk they were left in playpens with only a ball to play with.
What were the effects of the orphanage in Dennis’s study after 2 months and 1 year ?
They appeared normal for their age at 2 months.
However at the end of a year their cognitive development had slumped to only half the normal level. Less than one in six could walk by 3 years old.
The girls were sent to another institution at 6 where they received little attention and stimulation. It was found that they had an IQ of 50 at 16 due to the lack of stimulation.
Interestingly the boys did much better, they were transferred at age 6 to a much better staffed and equipped orphanage and they did much better than the girls. Although they still scored below normal on IQ tests when tested at 10-14 years they had progressed sufficiently to atleast function in society.
It was found that they had an IQ of 80 at 15 as they had stimulation through training and jobs. This shows that the social and educational state of the children could have been due to lack of stimulation rather than privation because they all had privation but it was the stimulation that had varied.
By age 16, girls who remained institutionalised progressed very badly. They could not read or write nor perform even basic arithmetic. In contrast the progress of children who were adopted was much more positive, even those adopted at the relatively late age of 4 were only slightly retarded in terms of IQ.
He found that a child that had been adopted before the age of two had reached an IQ of 100.
Children adopted after the age of two reached IQs of slightly below 100 and therefore Wayne Dennis concluded that there might be a critical age involved.
What are the effects of institutionalisation ?
One possible effect of institutionalisation is Attachment disorder, a recognised psychiatric disorder under the DSM following privation. It is characterised by:
- no preferred attachment figure
- inability to interact and relate to others evident before the age of five
- the child has experienced neglect
With reactive or inhibited attachments disorder, the child is shy and withdrawn and unable to cope with most social situations.
With disinhibited attachment disorder the child does not discriminate between people they chose to become attached to e.g. They will treat near strangers with inappropriate familiarity and at be attention seeking
What is privation ?
When a child fails to form an attachment
