Attachment - Institutionalisation Flashcards
What is institutionalisation
A term for the effects of living in an institutional setting. Institution refers to place like a hospital or orphanage where children live for long, continuous period of time.
Very little emotional care provided
What is the procedure of rutters ERA study
Rutter and colleagues 2011 followed 165 Romanian orphans
Adopted in Britain
Test if good care could make up for poor early experience in institutions
Physical, cognitive and emotional development assessed
4,6,11 and 15 years
52 British children - control group (adopted)
What were the results of rutters study
First arrived - delayed intellectual development
Age 11- different rates of recovery , this related to age of adoption
Mean iq of those adopted before 6 months was 102
86 adopted between 6 months and 2 years
77 for those adopted after 2 years
In terms of attachment what were the findings of study
Children adopted after they were 6 months showed showed signs of disinhibited attachment
Symptoms include attention seeking clinginess and social behaviour directed indiscriminately towards adults both familiar and unfamiliar
None of this type of attachment present in children adopted before 6 months
What is the procedure for the Bucharest early intervention project
Zeanah et al (2005)
assessed attachment type in 95 institutionalised children aged 12-31 month oldusing the strange situation in Bucharest, Romania
- they were compared to a control group of 50 children who had never experienced institutional care
Carers were also asked about unusual behaviour linked to disinhibited attachment
What were the findings of the study the Bucharest early intervention project
74% of control group came out as securely attached
19% of institutional group were securely attached
65% with disorganised attachment
44% disinhibited attachment
Less than 20% of controls disinhibited
Shows foster care broadly effective, the earlier it is the better the recovery
Explain disinhibited attachment as an effect of institutionalisation
Equally as friendly and affectionate toward as people they know well and strangers they’ve just met
Most children show stranger anxiety
Rutter 2006 - as an adaption of living with multiple caregivers during sensitive period
In poor quality institutions - up to 50 carers
Explain mental retardation as effect of institutionalisation
Most children show signs of retardation when first arrive
Most of those adopted before they were 6 months caught up with control group by 4
Intellectual development can be recovered if adoption take place before 6 months - the age at which attachments form
What is a strength of research (practical)
Research has practical and benefitting real life applications
Orphanages and children’s homes now avoid having large numbers of care givers for each child
Instead small number or key worker
So children have chance to develop normal attachments and avoid disinhibited attachment
Research is immensely valuable - improvements in way children cared for in institutions
What is a strength of era studies
Less confounding variables
Era study has less confounding variables than other orphan studies
Previous studies involved children who had experienced loss or trauma before institutionalisation.
May have been traumatised by experience
Very hard to observe the effects of institutionalisation
Children’s past experience acted as confounding variables
Increased internal validity because confounding variables not present
What is a limitation of era study (generalisability)
Era study lacked generalisability
Possible conditions were so bad that results cannot be applied to other situations that involve institutional care
Can be seen as Romanian orphans had extremely poor standards of care, never be present now
Era studies have unusual situational variables
Lack external validity
What is methodological limitation of era studies ?
Era studies involve methodological issues
Children in studies no randomly assigned and this produced many confounding variables
Child adopted later on may have been more sociable
Bucharest early intervention did randomly allocate orphans to institutional care or foster care.
This presents ethical issues as this could have potentially damaging consequences for the child
Era studies contain confounding variables that are hard to resolve
