Privation Flashcards
What is privation?
when an attachment to a caregiver is never formed
What are privated children sometimes referred to?
Feral, as they were often found to be severely neglected
What adverse effects are known from privation?
Poor social, emotional and intellectual development
Rutter (1998) looked at 111 Romanian orphans (from poor q orphanages) adopted by English families compared to 52 adopted and born in England, They found..
Romanians caught up in weight, height and cognitive level despite initial developmental delay although those adopted later made slower progress
How were those adopted later in Rutter (1998) effected?
Affected psychologically and physically for longer, some had attachment disorder, were attention seeking and non selective in their friendship choices
What long term effects did Rutter (1998) find?
Impacts on those adopted later were still present at age 11
What is a strength of Rutter (1998)?
There were less extraneous variables than other adoption studies; children had to be aged 4 from England or Romania
What is an application of Rutter (1998)?
The amount of caregivers each child has in some institutions today is less so that they can build higher quality attachments
What is a weakness of Rutter (1998)?
It is difficult to generalise the findings to other countries as childrens’ experience of orphanages elsewhere might be totally different
Whom did Eigsti et al (2011) concern?
46 internationally adopted children to see if the length of their institutionalisation impacted their language skills and cognitive development
Where had the children in Eigsti et al (2011) gone?
To the USA from the age of 2 - 7 years old and had been living in the USA for 1-9 years
What did Eigsti et al (2011) find?
Language skills were affected by the length of time spent in an institution compared with 24 controls who were not adopted
What is a strength of Eigsti et al (2011)?
They had adopted children from a variety of countries, which makes generalisability good, even though it may have introduced confounding variables
What is a weakness of Eigsti et al (2011)?
The cognitive abilities of the birth parents were not known but are likely to have had a strong influence on the abilities of children
What did Curtis (1977) study?
The case of Genie, a girl discovered at 13 whom suffered extreme privation and was kept totally isolated for the majority of her life
What did Curtis (1977) find?
Her language development did not develop beyond that of a toddler although she did improve socially, cogntively and intellectually
What is a limitation of Curtis’ findings?
It may not be privation that meant she did not make a full recovery in terms of language and it may be that she was mentally retarded as she suffered a fever when young
What did Koluchova (1972) find?
That in the case of the Czech twins, privation was reversible as by the age of 20 both twins had good relationships, jobs and had an average IQ
What is a limitation of Koluchova?
The case my not be privation as the twins could form attachments with each other
What did Freud and Dann (1951) find?
Children who had survived concentration camps were able to form attachments with clinicians in rehab and developed normal adult relationships
What is a weakness of Freud and Dann (1951)?
Unique children were used at a unique point in time so the results may not be generalisable to other children
What did Tizard (1989) find?
That children who had been in institutional care and then adopted were able to form attachments to their adoptive parents, but not anyone else
What is a weakness of Tizard?
The institutions had high staff turnover so may not be true for today as close relationships were discouraged then and we now now this isn’t right
What did Rutter (1998) look at?
111 Romanian oprhans from poor quality orphanages adopted by English families compared to 52 children adopted an born in England
