Institutionalisation Flashcards
what is an institution
refers to a place like a hospital or an orphanage outside the families home where a child may live for a short period of time or long which can lead to a disruption of attachment it can also lead to adopting the rules of the institute
What is disinhibited attachment
as a reult of having multiple caregivers during critical period many chikdren show this social indiscriminate behaviour where they show affection to strangers and are clingy and attention seeking
mental retardation
as a result of inadequate care during critical period the infants were unable to develop and have very low iq as a result so institutionalisation has intellectual defecits too
Rutter study
she followed a group of 165 romanian orphans who were adopted in britain there were three groups those being adopted befor 6 months, 6 months to two years and 2 years and over their ohysical mental and cognitive skills were tested at 4 6 11 and 15. she wanted to compare them to british children and see how good quality care can make up for poor treatment early in life
findings of rutter
when the infants arrived in the uk they were severly undernousishesand showed mental retardation, the infants that were adopted before 6 months had iq of 100 or more those adopted between 6 and 2 years had an iq of less than 84 those that were adopted after 2 had an iq of less than 76
there were emotional effects there was hardly any sign of disinhibited attachments from infants that were adopted before 6 onths howver those adopted after 6 months showed signs of clinginess and attention seeking behaviour
Zeenah et al
she conducted a research on instituanalised children and found that 44% were disinhibited attachment and there was less than 20% in control group this shows that institualinisaation increases the risk of developing weak attachments which may affect future relationships
it is a longitudinal study
one stength is that it is a longitudinal study as it follows and asses the infants progress through years such as different stages this is a strenght as we can compare each individual to themselves and see how their development has been affected by instituationalisation as it will not ake sense to take information from different participants at different stages and different ages as there will be some individual difference
one strenght is practical application
there is practical applications with the knowledge of the effects of instituationalisation adoption agencies have tried to ensure infants are adopted before the age of two years so that a specidic attatchment can be formed during the critical period also they try to minimise staff handover sp eah child has a key worker this decreases the number of caregivers of the child so child can develop normal attachments and avoid disinhibited attachment
lacks population validity
the romanian oprhans study was used to see the effects of institutionalisation however the infants in romania were treated in appalling conditions and had such low level of interactional stimulation this cannot be applied to other institutes in the uk as the conditions of the situation in romania was extreme thus in the uk it is hardly likely to find as low quality of standards of living thus the levels of effects will be milder thus we cannot genralize the effects of institutionalisation to the wider population
