ATTACHMENT - Romanian orphan studies: Institutionalisation Flashcards
what are orphan studies?
- concerned children placed in care, because their parents cannot look after them
what is institutionalisation?
A term for the effects of living in an institutional setting.
what is an institution?
a place like a hospital, orphanage where people live for long continuous periods of time
why were children put into Romanian institutions?
president nicolai required romanian women to have five children - parents could not afford to care for their children= they ended up in huge orphanages, in poor conditions
Outline the procedure of Rutter et al’s research?
Rutter et al (2011) = followed 165 romanian orphans for many years as part of the English and Romanian adoptee study (ERA)
- ERA aimed to investigate the extent to which good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions.
- physical, cognitive ,emotional development had been assessed in people ages 4,6,11,15 and 22-25 years.
- control group = 52 children from UK adopted around the same time.
Outline the findings of Rutter et al’s research.
- half adoptees showed signs of delayed intellectual development
- majority severely undernourished
- at age 11 adopted children showed different rates of recovery
-IQ of those adopted before the age of 6 months was higher than those adopted between 6 months and two years = differenced remained at age 16 - those adopted after 6 months of age had a disinhibited attachement style = symptoms: attention seeking, clinginess, social behaviour indiscriminately to adults.
Outline the procedure of Zeanah et al.’s research.
- conducted the Bucharest Early intervention project (BEI)
-95 romanian children
-age 12-31 months
-assessed most of their lives in institutional care
-control group = 50 children who had never lived in an institution - attachement type assessed using Strange situation
-carers asked about unusual social behaviours eg. attention seeking, clinginess
Outline the findings of Zeanah et al’s research
- control group = 46% securely attached
- institutional group = 19% securely attached
-institutional group = 44% disinhibited attachment
what are the effects of institutionalisation?
DISINHIBITED ATTACHMENT
INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY
what is disinhibited attachment?
Being equally friendly and affectionate towards familiar people and strangers - unusual behaviour ( most children show stranger anxiety)
Rutter explained that people from the institutions developed disinhibited attachment as they were surrounded by multiple during the sensitive period for attachment.
what is intellectual disability?
Damage to intellectual development as a result of institutionalisation. Can be recovered if adoption is provided before the age of 6 months.
Give the STRENGTHS of the Roman orphan studies.
+ real world application
eg. influenced to improve conditions for children growing up outside their family home
Langton (2006)= improvement in understanding of institution care = led to improvements in conditions
conditions such as having one or two carers who play a central role in emotional care
Therefore children in institutional care have a chance to develop normal attachments
+ fewer confounding variables
children from romanian orphanages were mainly handed over by parents who could not afford to keep them
Therefore results are much less likely to be confounded by other negative early experiences = increasing internal validity
Give the LIMITATIONS of the Roman orphan studies.
- confounding variables = studying children in from the romanian orphanages may have introduced different confounding variables. Such as quality of care was poor.
Therefore harmful effects seen may represent effects of poor institutional care rather than the institutional care itself.
-Lack of data on adult development
eg latest data from ERA study only looked at children from early to mid 20s
-There is no data to answer questions such as ‘long term effects of institutional care?’.
- It will take a long time to gather this data due to longitudinal design of study
Therefore it will take time before we know the full effects of Institutionalisation on roman orphans.
