Effects of institutionalisation

Question 1

What is the key study into the effects of institutionalisation?

Answer 1

Rutter and Sonuga-Barke’s Romanian orphans study (2010)

Question 2

Summarise the ERA study (2010)

Answer 2

• 165 romanian orphans
• 111 adopted before the age of 2
• further 54 by the age of 4
• tested at regular intervals to assess physical, cognitive and social development
• control group of 52 people British children adopted before 6 months
• at time of adoption R lagged behind B on all measures (smaller, weighed less and were classed as mentally retarded)
• almost all R adopted before 6 months had caught up by 4
• deficits remain for those adopted after 6 months
• disinhibited attachment (indiscriminate sociability to adults)

Question 3

A03-real life application

Answer 3

• research can help to improve lives of children in care
• most babies are now adopted within the first week of birth so that they can bond in the sensitive period
• Singer et al (1985) adoptive mothers and children can be just as attached as biological mothers

Question 4

A03-longitudinal

Answer 4

• followed children’s development over years
• lots of time, effort and expense
• without such studies it may have been thought that such effects were due to early institutionalisation and could not be reversed after sufficient time and care
• shows it is wrong to assume that institutionalisation inevitably causes negative effects

Question 5

A03- individual differences

Answer 5

• not all institutionalised children are unable to recover
• some children are more strongly affected than others
• Rutter-some children may have received more attention or special care

Question 6

What are the effects of institutionalisation?

Answer 6

• physical underdevelopment
• intellectual underfunctioning
• disinhibited attachment
• poor parenting

Question 7

What did Gardner (1972) find to be the cause of deprivation dwarfism?

Answer 7

lack of emotional care

Question 8

What is disinhibted attachment?

Answer 8

a form of insecure attachment where children are indisciminate of attachment figures, children will treat near strangers with appropriate familiarity and are often attention seeking

Question 9

Is there research to support poor parenting as an effect of institutionalisation?

Answer 9

• Quinton et al (1984)
• 50 women that grew up in institutional care
• 50 women raised at home as a control group
• In their 20’s, mothers that had been institutionalised had severe difficulties with parenting and were more likely to have a child that had spent time in care