Attachment: Institutionalisation Flashcards
Institutionalisation Definition.
Institutionalisation: In context of attachment refers to the effects of growing up in an orphanage or children’s home. Children who are raised in these institutions often suffer from a lack of emotional care which means children are unable/find it difficult to form normal attachment.
Effects Of Institutionalisation: Physical Underdevelopment.
- Children in institutional care are usually physically small.
- Research shows the lack of emotional care rather than poor nourishment is the cause of deprivation dwarfism.
Effects Of Institutionalisation: Intellectual Underdevelopment Or Mental Retardation.
- Mental retardation is an intellectual disability that results in intellectual capabilities significantly below average.
- Mental retardation can interfere with learning the ability to care for oneself and the ability to meet general societal expectations about how to behave.
- In Rutter’s study most children showed signs of this when they arrived in Britain.
- Those adopted before 6 months caught up on intellect development.
Effects Of Institutionalisation: Disinhibited Attachment.
- Children are equally friendly to strangers as they are to people they know well.
- An adaptation to living with multiple caregivers, unable to form secure attachment.
Effects Of Institutionalisation: Poor Parenting.
- Harlow showed monkeys raised with surrogate mother became poor parents.
- Quinton compared women raised at home to those in an institution and found that ex-institutional women had extreme difficulties acting as parents leading to more of their children being in care as they have no schema of how attachments should be.
Rutter et al (English And Romanian Adoptee Study).
Aim: Investigate what extent good care could make up for experiences in institutions.
Method: Followed a group of 165 Romanian orphans who were adopted in Britain. Physical, cognitive and emotional development were assessed at age 4, 6, 11, 15 years. Used a control group of 52 British adoptees.
Findings: The Romanian adoptees showed signs of delayed intellectual development on arrival to Britain. Children before the age of 6 months had 102 IQ, children between the age of 6 months and 2 years had 86 IQ, children after 2 years had 77 IQ. Children adopted after 6 months showed signs of disinhibited attachment whereas those adopted before the age of 6 months rarely showed signs.
Conclusion: Institutionalisation has an effect children’s attachment and intellect/disinhibited and mental retardation. The effects of institutionalisation is related to the age of adoption. If children are adopted before 6 months they are likely to develop normally. This supports the view that there is a sensitive period of around 6 months.
What Were The Findings Of Rutter Et Al Study?
- The mean IQ of children before the age of 6 months was 102.
- The mean IQ of children between 6 months and 2 years was 86.
- The mean IQ of children after 2 years was 77.
- Children adopted after 6 months showed signs disinhibited attachment whereas those adopted before 6 months rarely showed signs of disinhibited attachment.
Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEI Study).
Aim: Compare attachment types between Romanian children in institutionalised care and those who had not experienced institutionalised care.
Method: Used SS to assess attachment type in 95 children aged 12-31 months in Romania. Compared to a control group of 50 children who had never experienced institutional care.
Findings: 74% of the control group securely attached. 19% of institutional group securely attached. 65% of institutional group disorganised attachment.
Conclusion: Institutionalisation has an effect on children’s attachment. Children who have experienced it are more likely to experience disorganised attachment.
What Were The Findings Of Bucharest Early Intervention Project?
- 74% of the control group were securely attached.
- 19% of institutional group were securely attached.
- 65% of institutional group were disorganised attached.
Evaluation: Weakness - Generalisability.
- Conditions of the Romanian orphanages much worse than most institutional care.
- They had particularly poor standards of care due to lack of relationship/lack of intellectual stimuli.
- These unusual situational variables means that the studies lack generalisability - can’t compare effects to British orphanages as may be due to the awful experience rather than orphanage itself.
Evaluation: Strength - Application.
- Romanian orphan studies have enhanced understanding of the effects of institutionalisation.
- This has led to improvements in the way children are looked after in institutionalisation - orphanages now avoid large numbers of caregivers for each child as children have a key worker.
- The studies are valuable in practical terms.
Evaluation: Weakness - Validity.
- Studies prior to the Romanian orphan studies involved children experienced loss or trauma (neglect, abuse, bereavement) which is confounding participant variables.
- This makes it difficult to observe the effects of institutionalisation in isolation.
- Romanian orphan studies do not have these confounding variables and therefore have increased internal validity.
- However the conditions they lived in within the institutions were forms of trauma/neglect e.g poor nourishment which could be a confounding variable.
Evaluation: Weakness - Long Term Effects.
- These studies don’t give a clear picture of the long term effects of Institutionalisation.
- They stopped assessing the children’s development in mid-teens.
- We don’t know if the effects improve with age or remain with the child into adulthood as brain continues to develop till 20s.
