Attachment: Romanian orphan studies

Question 1

Institutionalisation

Answer 1

A term for the effects of living in a institutional setting such as an orphanage, where children live for long, continuous periods of time, often with little emotional care

Question 2

Orphan studies

Answer 2

These concern children placed in care because their parents cannot look after them

Question 3

Disinhibited attachment

Answer 3

Children will be attention seeking, clingy and direct social behaviours indiscriminately towards all adults

Question 4

Rutter’s English-Romanian Adoptee study (2011)

Answer 4

Followed a group of Romanian orphans adopted in Britain
52 British children adopted around the same time served as the control group
Half the adoptees showed signs of mental retardation
Children adopted after 6 months showed signs of disinhibited attachment, but children adopted before 6 months did not

Question 5

The Bucharest Early Intervention Project (2005)

Answer 5

Zeanah et al (2005) assessed attachment in 95 children aged 12-31 months who had spent about 90% of their lives in institutional care
Their attachment type was measured using the strange situation
74% of the control group were securely attached compared to only 19% of the institutionalised group
65% of the institutionalised group were classified with disorganised attachment
44% of the institutionalised group fit the description of disinhibited attachment compared to less than 20% of the control group

Question 6

Effects of institutionalisation

Answer 6

Disinhibited attachment and mental retardation

Question 7

Mental retardation

Answer 7

In Rutter’s study, most of the children showed signs of mental retardation, but those adopted before 6 months caught up with the control group by the time they were 4 years old
Damage to intellectual development as a result of institutionalisation can be recovered if adopted takes place before 6 months