Effects Institution Flashcards
Define institution
Children spending a long period of time living outside of the family home within an institution
Leading to loss of personal identity and impaired cognitive function
Reactive attachment disorder
Lack of sensitive responsiveness
Unable to trust or love others
Become isolated and very selfish
Become a sociopath, without conscience can have lack of remorse
Disinhibited attachment
Select attachment figure indiscriminately
Behave in an overly familiar fashion
Adapt to having multiple caregivers during the sensitive period for attachment formation
Attention seeking
Cognitive impairment
Low iq
Problems with conetrarion
Difficulty learning new concepts and behaviours
What was the aim of Rutter et el study
Investigate whether loving and nurturing care could overturn the effects of institutionalisation in Romanian orphanages
What was the procedure of Rutter et els study ?
Longitudinal study
Physical emotional and cognitive development was assessed
At ages 4,6,11 and 15
Sample
111 romanian orphans adopted into British families
How did Rutter study the 3 groups
1) adopted before the age of 6 months
2) adopted between 6 months and 2 years
3) adopted after 2 years
Who were they compared to ?
A control group of 52 British adopted children
What was found about the 50 percent of Romanian children ?
Showed signs of cognitive impairment and severely undernourished
What was found about the age up to 4 years ?
Good recoveries
What was found about those who were adopted later ?
Higher levels of Disinhibited attachment
Those who were age 11
Mean iq for those adopted later was lower (77) than earlier
Those at the ages of 6 months ?
Had normal iq level at (102)
Conclusion of effect on institutionalisation
Negative effects of institution can be overcome
If adoption takes place earlier
Ao3 Romanian orphans studies : effects on institutionalisation
Practical applications
Because principles of the theory institutionalisation has lead to psychological problems
Eg children home now avoid having large number of caregivers and instead have one or two keyworkers
Who play a central role in child’s care
Thus institutionalisation is an important part of psychology
Ao3 RTS was by zee nat et el 2005
Compared Romanian infants ages 12-13 months , assessed using a strange situation
Found 44 % of institutionalised children showed signs of Disinhibited attatchment compared to less than 20 % of control group
Supporting effects of institutionalisation as being in an institution can have negative effects on psychological development
Ao3 RTS high control over extraneous variables
In previous orphans studies children had often experienced trauma neglect or abuse before being intutionalised
Was difficult to tell if any long term effects were due to neglect and abuse of institutional care
However in Rutters research majority of Romanian orphans had been handed over by loving parents
Meaning it was possible to study the effects of institutionalisation without these cofounding variables
Increasing internal validity of research into the effects of institutionalisation
Ao3 weakness
However studying children from Romanian orphanages might have introduced diffrent cofounding variables
Quality of care in these institutions was extremely poor with children receiving very little intellectual stimulation or comfort
Meaning harmful effect seen in studies of Romanian orphans may be due to effects of poor institutional care
