L8 - Institutional Care

Question 1

What is institutional care?

Answer 1

• when a child’s living arrangements are outside of the family- children homes/ hostels/ hospitals
• children raised in institutions can adopt rules + norms of the insitution - could impair functioning and lead to loss of personal identity (deindividuation)

Question 2

What was the procedure for the study of the Romanian orphans (Rutter et al 2010)?

Answer 2

• 165 Romanian children who spent early life in orphanages before being adopted + thus suffered from effects of institutionalisation
• adoptees tested at regular intervals (ages 4/6/11 and 15) to assess physical/ cognitive and social development
• progress compared to control group of 52 British children aopted in the UK before age of 6 months

Question 3

What were the findings for the study of the Romanian orphans (Rutter et al 2010)?

Answer 3

• at time of adoption, Romanian orphans lagges behind British counterparts on all measures of physical/ cognitive and social development
• by age of 4, Romanian children adopted before the age of 6 months had caught up with British counterparts
• HOWEVER sig number of individuals adopted after the age of 6 months still had significant deficits are age 4

Question 4

What was the conclusion for the study of the Romanian orphans (Rutter et al 2010)?

Answer 4

• study suggests that longterm consequences of institutionalisation may be less severe if children adopted before the age of 6 months + also recieve sensitive parenting
• However if not adopted by 6 months then consequences of institutionalisation likely to be severe

Question 5

What are the effects of institutionalisation?

Answer 5

1) Delayed intellectual development - low IQ + concentration problems - may struggle at school because they cannot learn new behaviours + concepts as quickly

2) Disinhibited Attachment - children in institutions may not know what appropiate behaviour towards a stranger is - can ber overly affectionate + attention-seeking

3) Emotional development - children raised in institutions may have difficulty managing their anger (perhaps more temper tandtrums than other children)

4) Lack of internal working model - children raised in institutions can have difficulty interacting with peers + forming close relationships - as adults they will have impaired adult relationships /= can struggle to parent their own children

5) Children raised in institutions Quasi- Autism because they struggle to understand the meaning of social contexts + can have obsessional behaviours - can have lower freq of pretend play + reduced empathy

6) Delayed physical development - usually physically small. Research has shown that a lack of emotional care rather than poor nourishment is the cause of what has been called deprivation dwarfism

Question 6

What are the strengths of Institutionalisation?

Answer 6

+ studies that have investigated effects of institutionalisation have enhanced our understanding of potential negative consequences of institutional care + has led to the establishment of key workers in institutions to provide emotional care for children

+ studies have led to chnagesin adoption process - in past, mother encouraged to nurse children for as long as possible before giving them up for adoption - BUT today mmost bbaies adopted within first week of life (deffo before 6 months)

Question 7

What are the weaknesses of institutional care studies?

Answer 7

• problems when generalising findings of studies of Romanian orphans as standards of care were quite poor in Romania - the orphans were faced with much more emotional deprivation - physical conditions appalling + lack of cognitive stimulation - likely that long-term damage from institutional care only occurs when there are multiple risk factors
• possible that negtative effects of institutional care can be reduced by sensitive parenting - Le Mare + Audet (2006) conducted longitudinal study of 36 romanian orphans adopted to families in Canada - adopted orphans were physically smaller than matched control group at age 4 but difference disappeared by 10 - same true for psychological health
• participant variables between the children could influence the findings in unanticipated ways - adopted children might have been adopted because of personal characteristics such as resilience or being more sociable - might explain why they were less affected by institutional care - lowers validity of research