Institutionalisation

Question 1

Rutter et al- procedure:

Answer 1

• group of 165 Romanian orphans adopted in Britain.
• test extent that good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions. Some adopted before 6 months, all others before 4. He assessed physical, cognitive and emotional development. Assessed as age 4, 6, 11 and 15

Question 2

Rutter et al- findings and conclusions:

Answer 2

Iq: 102 (adopted pre 6months), 86 (adopted 6months-2years), 77 (adopted 2 years +).
- Differences still there at age 16 (Beckett et al)
-Children adopted after 6 months showed signs of disinhibited attachment whereas those children adopted before 6 months rarely did.

Question 3

Zeanah et al procedure:

Answer 3

• 95 children 12-31months who spent most of life in institutional care, compared to 50 control group (non-institutional). Attachment type measured using strange situation/ asked about unusual social behaviours.

Question 4

Zeanah et al findings and conclusions:

Answer 4

• 74% control group, securely
• 19% institutionalised, securely
• 65% institutionalised, disorganised
• 44% institutionalised, disinhibited

Question 5

Affects of institutionalisation

Answer 5

• damage to intellectual/cognitive development is affect by emotional deprivation (can be reversed if adopted before 6 months)
• deprivation dwarfism (physical underdevelopment)
• disinhibited attachment: where the child is equally friendly to people they know and strangers (could be as an adaptation to having multiple carers.

Question 6

+ real-world application (ao3)

Answer 6

• now most babies are adopted in the first couple of weeks, to attach to adoptive mother
• helped children’s homes, make sure child to caregiver ratio is smaller to develop normal attachments and avoid disinhibited attachment.

Question 7

+ fewer confounding variables (ao3)

Answer 7

The Romanian orphans are all there for the same reason so confounding variables such as neglect, abuse and bereavement don’t have an effect on results/observations. This means we can be fairly sure of differences in institutionally cared for children and other types of care children (high internal validity)

Question 8

– lack of data on adult development (ao3)

Answer 8

Its too soon to say for certain whether children suffered permanent effects because we only have data on their development up to their early twenties. Minimal information on how they are in relationships/as parents.

Question 9

Evaluation extra- social sensitivity (ao3)

Answer 9

Late adopted children were labelled as low iq and may be treated differently because of it, leading to a self fulfilling prophecy. Although knowledge gained outweighs the potential drawbacks.