orphan studies ATM

Question 1

orphan studies

Answer 1

Placed in care because their parents cannot look after them, died parents or abandoned them

Question 2

institutionalism

Answer 2

Behaviour patterns of children who have been raised in setting such as orphanages or care homes

Question 3

Romanian policy problem

Answer 3

Former president required romanian women to have five children - Most couldn’t afford to keep this many children, so ended up in orphanages

Question 4

Rutter’s procedure

Answer 4

• 165 Romanian orphans part of the study
• adopted by families in the UK
• Extent to which good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions
• Physical, emotional, cognitive assessed in ages 4,6,11,15 and 22-25
• 52 children from UK adopted around same time played control group

Question 5

Rutter’s findings

Answer 5

• Delayed intellectual development and undernourished
• 11 yrs old, different rates of recovery
• IQ of those adopted before 6 months was 102
• IQ adopted between 6 months and 2 years was 86
• After 6 month showed disinhibited attachment (Attention seeking, clinginess)

Question 6

Zeanah’s procedure

Answer 6

• Assessing attachment in 95 Romanian children 12-31 months most lives in institutional care
• Control group of 50 children never in institution

Question 7

Zeanah’s findings

Answer 7

• 74% of control group securely attached
• 19% of institutional group were securely attached

Question 8

disinhibited attachment

Answer 8

children showed sign of intellectual disability when they arrived in britain

Question 9

RWA

strength

Answer 9

• Application to improve conditions for children growing up outside their family home
• Improved knowledge around institutional care and how to prevent the worse effects
• For example, children’s homes now avoid large numbers of caregivers for each child

Question 10

confounding variables

strength

Answer 10

• Lack of confounding variables
• romanian orphans had been handed over by loving parents who could not afford to keep them
• results less likely to be confounded by other negative early experiences

Question 11

Lack of adult data

limitation

Answer 11

• latest data from ERA was early to mid 20s
• no current data on long term effects
• take time to gatherinformation as longitudinal study
• possible that ‘late aadopted’ children may catch up