Institutionalisation

Question 1

What is institutionalisation?

Answer 1

The social, mental and physical effects of living in an institutional setting. Institution refers to a place like a hospital or orphanage where children live for a long, continuous period of time.

Question 2

What are four effects of institutionalisation?

Answer 2

1. Mental retardation (low IQ)
2. Disinhibited attachment (form of insecure attachment- child is equally friendly towards strangers)
3. Physical underdevelopment (dwarfism)
4. Poor parenting (e.g. Harlow’s monkeys)

Question 3

What are two orphan studies which investigated the effects of institutionalisation?

Answer 3

1. Rutter’s ERA study= IQ
2. The Bucharest Early Intervention project= Attachment

Question 4

What are the findings on IQ for Rutter’s ERA study?

Answer 4

x Adopted before 6 months: IQ= 102
x Adopted between 6 months and 2 years: IQ= 86
x Adopted after 2 years: IQ= 77

Question 5

What were the findings for Attachment type for Rutter’s ERA study?

Answer 5

Adopted after 6 months= dis-inhibited attachment
Adopted before 6 months rarely showed dis-inhibited attachment

Question 6

What were the findings of The Bucharest Early Intervention Project?

Answer 6

74% of control group= securely attached
65% of institutional group= disorganised attachment
44% of institutional group= dis-inhibited attachment

Question 7

Who did the English and Romanian adoptee sudy?

Answer 7

Rutter (2011)

Question 8

Who did the Bucharest early intervention project study?

Answer 8

Zeanah et al. (2005)

Question 9

Describe the Rutter’s study English Romanian adoptee study

Answer 9

Rutter’s era (English and Romanian adoptee) study (2011)- Michael Rutter (2011) followed a group of 165 Romanian orphans who spent their early lives in Romanian institutions and thus suffered from the effects of institutionalisation. This is a longitudinal and natural study.
Rutter aimed to test to what extent good after care made up for poor early experiences in institutions.
Physical, emotional and cognitive development were assessed at age 4, 6, 11 and 15 years. 52 British children were used as a control group.
FINDINGS: The IQ of those adopted before 6 months averaged at 102, compared with 86 for those who were adopted between 6 months and two years, and 77 for those adopted after two years. Differences remained at age 16.
There was also an effect on the type of attachments the infants had formed. There was a difference in outcome related to whether adoption took place before or after 6 months. Those adopted after 6 months showed signs of disinhibited attachment.- clingy attention-seeking and over friendly to any adult.
Those adopted before 6 months rarely showed disinhibited attachment.

Question 10

Describe Zeahah et al.( (2005) The bucharest early intervention project study

Answer 10

THE BUCHAREST EARLY INTERVENTION PROJECT- ZEANAH ET AL. (2005):
Zeanah et al. (2005) assessed attachment in 95 children aged 12-31 months who had spent most life in institutional care.
They were compared to a control group of 50 children who had never lived in an institution.
Attachment was measured using the strange situation and carers were asked about unusual behaviour.
FINDINGS:
- 74% of the control group were securely attached, only 19% of the institutional group were the same.
- 65% had disorganised attachment, 44% had dis-inhibited attachment as opposed to less than 20% of controls.

Question 11

What are the two strengths of the Romanian orphan studies?

Answer 11

Real-world application- key workers in orphanages- Romanian orphan studies have enhanced our understanding of the effects of institutionalisation  has been applied to improving the lives of children placed in institutions.
E.g. orphanages and children’s homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child and instead ensure that a much smaller number of people play a central role for the child- this person is known as a key worker. This allows the children the chance to develop normal attachments and helps avoid disinhibited attachment.
Also considerable effort is made to ensure that looked-after children are not put into institutional care can provide them with foster care or adoption instead.

Longitudinal studies- Allows the researcher to follow the same people over a long period of time allowing for changes to be observed in how institutionalisation has impacted the children’s attachment.
Without such studies we may mistakenly conclude that there are major effects due to early institutional care, whereas some of these studies show that the effects may disappear with suitable high-quality care.

Question 12

What are the limitations of the Romanian orphan studies?

Answer 12

Population validity- This research may lack population validity as the Romanian orphanages were not typical of other orphanages.
The fact that the conditions in the orphanages of Romania were so bad means that the results found may not be able to compare to other institutionalised children around the world as they may have not been through the same procedures and environments as those of Romania’s orphanages. For example, in the UK institutions have higher standards of care.
Therefore, we must be careful making generalisations from this research.

Lack internal validity- Many orphan studies lack control over participant variables which could be playing a role. Many of the orphans could have experienced neglect abuse or bereavement before they were institutionalised leading to trauma which could have led to developmental issues rather than being institutionalised  it is very hard to observe the effects of institutionalisation in isolation because the children were dealing with multiple factors.
Counter- In the case of the Romanian orphan studies the infants were institutionalised pretty much from birth and so it has been possible to study institutionalisation without these confounding variables.