Roman orphan studies Flashcards
what are roman orphan studies?
Many Romanians abandoned their newborn children, leaving thousands to suffer at under-funded, state-run orphanages.
abortion and access to contraceptives were banned
describe the procedure of Rutter’s ERA study
165 Romanian orphans from institutions were adopted in Britain. Physical, cognitive and emotional development was assessed at ages 4,6, 11 and 15. A group of 52 British children adopted around the same time have served as a control group.
what were the findings of Rutter’s ERA study?
When they first arrived in the UK half the adoptees showed signs of delayed intellectual development and the majority were severely undernourished.
At age 11 the adopted children showed differential rates of recovery that were related to their age of adoption.
The mean IQ of those children adopted before the age of 6 months was 102, compared with 86 for those adopted between 6 months and 2 years and 77 for those adopted after 2 years.
These differences remained at age 16
what did the children adopted after 6 months show ?
Those children adopted after 6 months showed signs of a particular attachment style called disinhibited attachment. Symptoms include; attention seeking, clinginess and social behaviour directed indiscriminately towards all adults, both familiar and unfamiliar.
describe the procedure of Bucharest Early Intervention project
Zeanah et al assessed attachment in 85 children aged 12-31 months who had spent most of their lives in institutional care. They were compared to a control group of 50 children who had never lived in an institution. Their attachment type was measured using the strange situation. In addition, carers were asked about unusual social behaviours (disinhibited attachment).
what were the findings of the Bucharest Early Intervention project
They found that 74% of the control group came out securely attached. However only 19% of the institutional group were securely attached, with 65% being classified with disorganised attachment. 44% of the institutional group had disinhibited attachment as opposed to 20% of the control
Evaluation : strength
enhanced our understanding of the effects of institutionalisation
For example, Langton (2006) found that orphanages and children’s homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child and instead ensure that a much smaller number of people, maybe one or two people, play a central role for the child.
This person would be called the key worker. Having a key worker means that children have the chance to develop normal attachments and helps avoid disinhibited attachment.
evaluation: high internal validity
Romanian orphan studies had stricter control over participants variables when compared to previous studies.
e.g the orphans may have experienced neglect, abuse or bereavement. These children were often traumatised by their experiences and suffered bereavement.
This means it was very hard to study the effects of institutionalisation in isolation because the children were dealing with multiple factors which functioned as confounding participant variables
Evaluation: weakness
methodological issues
Children were not randomly assigned to conditions. The researchers did not interfere with the adoption process, which means that those children adopted early may have been the more sociable ones( a confounding variable.)
The Bucharest Early Intervention did manage to control these variables, They used random allocation. Romanian orphans were randomly allocated to institutional care or fostering.
This is methodologically better because it removes the confounding variable of which children are chosen by parents, but it raises ethical issues.
Evaluation: weakness
lack in application
it is possible that conditions were so bad that results cannot be applied to understanding the impact of better quality institutional care or indeed any situation where children experience deprivation.
e.g Romanian orphanages had particularly poor standards of care, especially when it came to forming any relationship with the children, and extremely low levels of intellectual stimulation.
(the unusual situational variables mean the studies may after all lack generalisability)
