Romanian orphan studies Flashcards
Rutter’s English an Romanian Adoptee study procedure
Rutter and colleagues have followed a group of 165 Romanian orphans adopted in Britain to test to what extent good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions. Physical , cognitive and emotional development has been assessed at ages 4,6, 11 and 15. A group of 52 British children adopted around the same time has served as a control group.
Findings of Rutter’s ERA
When they first arrived in the UK half the adoptees sowed signs of delayed intellectual development and the majority was severely malnourished. At age 11 the adoptees showed differential rates of recovery that were related to their age of adoption. Those children adopted after 6 months showed signs of a particular attachment style called disinhibited attachment. Symptoms include attention seeking, clinginess
Effects of institutionalisation
Disinhibited attachment is a typical effect of spending time in an institution. They are equally friendly or affectionate towards people they know well or who are stranger they have just met. Rutter has explained disinhibited attachment as an adaption to living with multiple caregivers during the sensitive period for attachment formation.
Mental retardation - most children in Rutter’s study showed signs of retardation when they arrived in Britain. However most of those who were adopted before they were 6 months old caught up with the control group by the age of 4
AO3- real life application
enhanced our understanding of the effects of institutionalisation . Such results has led to improvements in the way children are cared for in institutions. E.g orphanages and children’s homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child instead ensure that a much smaller number of people, perhaps 1 or 2, play a central role for the child. This person is called a key worker.
AO3- fewer extraneous variables than other orphan studies
often other studies of orphans involved children who had experienced loss or trauma before they were institutionalised. E.g neglect or abuse. These children were often traumatised by their experiences and suffered bereavement. It was very hard to study the effects of institutionalisation in isolation as the children were dealing with multiple factors which functioned as confounding participant variables. In the case of Romanian orphans it has been possible to study institutionalisation without these confounding variables, which means the findings have increased internal validity.
AO3- ethical issues
One of the methodological issues for Rutter’s ERA project is that 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.
