Romanian Orphan Studies Flashcards
What does institutionalised mean?
A term for the effects of living in an institutional setting- the term institution refers to a place such as a hospital or an orphanage where children live for long, continuous periods of time; in such places there is often very little emotional care provided
Disinhibited attachment is a typical effect of spending time in an institution- what is disinhibited attachment?
A type of insecure attachment where children do not form close attachments. Such children are equally friendly and affectionate towards all people they are familiar with or who are strangers they’ve just met- this seems to be an adaption to multiple caregivers
Explain the damage institutionalisation does to intellectual development?
Children who have been institutionalised show signs of mental retardation- this effect is not as pronounced if the children are adopted before 6 months of age (age at which attachments form)
What are the 2 key institutionalisation/ Romanian orphan studies we need to know?
1- Rutter et al (2011) English and Romanian Adoptee study
2- Zeanah et al (2005) Bucharest Early Intervention Project
What was the aim of Rutter et al’s English and Romanian longitudinal adoptee study (2011)?
To test to what extent good care could make up for experiences in institutions
What was the procedure of Rutter et al’s English and Romanian longitudinal adoptee study (2011)?
- Natural experiment where Rutter et al followed a group of over 150 Romanian orphans who experienced very poor conditions before being adopted in Britain
- physical, cognitive and emotional development been assessed at 4,6,11 and 15
- also followed 52 British children adopted around the same time; these children acted as a control group
What were the findings and conclusions of Rutter et al’s English and Romanian longitudinal adoptee study (2011)? (1)
- IQ scores were related to the age of adoption- half of the Romanian orphans showed mental retardation when they came to the UK and at aged 11 the rates of recovery were related to their age of adoption:
1) those adopted before the age of 6 months had a mean IQ of 102
2) those adopted between six months and 2 years had a mean IQ of 86
3) those adopted beyond the age of 2 years had a mean IQ of 77
What were the findings and conclusions of Rutter et al’s English and Romanian longitudinal adoptee study (2011)? (2)
Frequency of disinhibited attachment also related to the age of attachment:
- in terms of attachment, there appeared to be a difference in outcome related to whether adoption took place before or after 6 months
- children adopted after they were 6 months old showed signs of disinhibited attachment with symptoms including: clinginess, attention seeking and social behaviour directed indiscriminately towards adults
- children adopted before the age of 6 months rarely showed these behaviours
What were the findings and conclusions of Rutter et al’s English and Romanian longitudinal adoptee study (2011)? (3)
The differences continued in later assessments: subsequent follow-ups have confirmed that significant deficits remain in a substantial minority of individuals who experienced institutional care to behind the age of 6 months. These findings support the view that there is a sensitive period in the development of attachments- a failure to form an attachment before the age of 6 months appears to have long-lasting effects
For those who have remained in Romanian institutional care, the consequences have been even worse
What was the aim of Zeanah et al’s Bucharest Early Intervention Project (2005)?
To compare attachment types between Romanian children in institutionalised care and those who had not experienced institutionalised care using the strange situation
What was the procedure of Zeanah et al’s Bucharest Early Intervention Project (2005)?
- assessed attachment type in approximately 100 aged 12-31 month old institutionalised children using the strange situation in Bucharest, Romania
- they were compared to a control group of 50 children who had never experienced institutional care
What were the findings and conclusions of Zeanah et al’s Bucharest Early Intervention Project (2005)?
almost 20% of institutionalised group were securely attached with 65% classified with disorganised attachment
What is disorganised attachment?
Attachment characterised by a lack of consistent patterns of social behaviour; such infants lack a coherent strategy for dealing with the stress of separation. For example, they show very strong attachment behaviour which is suddenly followed by avoidance or looking fearfully towards their caregiver
What are the evaluation points for Romanian orphan studies?
✅ studying the Romanian orphans has enhanced our understanding of the effects of institutionalisation; such results have led to improvements in the way children are cared for in institutions. For example, orphanages and children’s homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child. Instead each child has one or two ‘key-workers’ who play a central role for the child. This enables the children to have a chance to develop normal attachments and avoid disinhibited attachments = research been immensely valuable in practical terms
❌ long-term effects of early adoption are not clear yet- it is too soon to say with any certainty whether children suffered short or long-term effects because adopted orphans have only been followed into their mid-teens. For example, early adopted/fostered children who appear to have no issues now, may experience emotional problems as adults
✅ one strength of the research involving Romanian orphans is that there are fewer confounding variables than in other studies. There were many orphan studies before the Romanian orphans became available to study, but often, these studies involved children who had experienced loss or trauma before they were institutionalised. For example, instances of neglect, abuse and bereavement meant that it was very hard to observe the effects of institutionalisation in isolation. However, in the case of the Romanian orphan studies, it has been possible to study institutionalisation without these confounding variables because most were abandoned at birth, increasing the internal validity of the findings
❌ issues with generalisability in Romanian orphan studies- it is possible that as the conditions of the orphanages are so dire that the results cannot be applied to understanding the impact of better quality institutional care or any situation where children experience deprivation. For example, Romanian orphanages had particularly bad standards of care, especially when it came to forming any relationship with the children = limitation of Romanian orphanage studies as the unusual situational variables may lack ecological validity
❌ one of the problems of Rutter’s longitudinal study is that children were not randomly assigned to conditions- the researchers did not interfere with the adoption process which means those children adopted early may have been more sociable ones, a confounding variable. To control for such variable, the Bucharest Early Intervention Project did randomly assign the orphans to institutional care or fostering conditions= methodologically better because it removes the confounding variable of which children are chosen by parents
