Effects of institutionalisation

Question 1

Institutionalisation

Answer 1

Effects of living in an institutional setting e.g hospital or orphanage. Where children live for long, continuous periods of time. often little emotional care provided. Can impair functioning.

Question 2

Effects of institutionalisation

Answer 2

-Physical underdevelopment- developmental dwarfism
-Intellectual under-functioning (low IQ)
-Disinhibited attachment- (Can be attention seeking and clingy.)
-poor parenting (Quinton found institutionalised women had a hard time as parents)
-Emotional functioning (affectionless psycopathy)
-Lack of IWM
-Quasi-autism

Question 3

characteristics of institutionalised care

Answer 3

• No attachment figure
• Bored
• Not cared for
• Less sociable
• Fewer toys.

Question 4

Rutter et al Romanian orphan studies procedure

Answer 4

165 Romanian orphans adopted in Brittan to test what extent good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions. 111 were adopted before 2 and 54 by 4.
Physical, cognitive and emotional development assessed at 4,6,11 and 15.
Control group adopted before 6 months. (52 children)

Question 5

Findings from romanian orphan studies

Answer 5

At time of adoption- Weighed lower, smaller, low IQ compared to british counterparts.

At age 4 some had caught up

At age of 11 adopted before 6 months IQ was 102 but 86 for those adopted between 6months to 2yrs. after 2 yrs- 77

Showed disinhibited attachment.

Question 6

Zennah et al study

Answer 6

95 children 12-31 months who spent 90% of lives in institutions compared to 50 ‘normal children’

used strange situation

74% of control group securely attached
19% of institutionalised group securely attached. 65% disorganised attachment

Disinhibited attachment 44% (control- 20%)

Question 7

Le Mare and Audet romanian orphan study

Answer 7

36 orphans adopted to Canada
DV- physical growth and health
Adopted orphans were physically smaller than control at age 4 1/2

Question 8

Strengths

Answer 8

Real life applications
-Enhanced understanding
-improvement in care systems (limited no. carers of each child and giving a key worker)
-Supoorts external validity

Fewer extraneous variables than previous studies
-In previous studies orphans had experienced loss before institutionalisation creating confounding confounding variables. We can be sure it is due to institutionalisation because it was from birth.