Romanian Orphan Studies

Question 1

Rutter’s ERA (English and Romanian Adoptee) study

Answer 1

Procedure
Rutter and colleagues (2011) 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 years. A group of 52 children adopted around the same time have served as a control group.

Findings
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 six months was 102, compared with 86 for those adopted between six months and two years and 77 for those adopted after two years. These differences remained at age 16 (Beckett et al. 2010).
In terms of attachment, there appeared to be a difference in outcome related to whether adoption took place before or after six months. Those children adopted after they were six months showed signs of a particular attachment style called disinhibited attachment. Symptoms include attention seeking, clinginess, social behaviour directed indiscriminately towards all adults - both familiar and unfamiliar. In contrast those children adopted before the age of six months rarely displayed disinhibited attachment.

Question 2

The Bucharest Early Intervention project

Answer 2

Procedure
Zeanah et al. (2005) assessed attachment in 95 children aged 12-31 months who had spent most of their lives in institutional care (90% on average). 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 behaviour including clingy, attention-seeking behaviour directed inappropriately at all adults (i.e. disinhibited attachment).

Findings
They found that 74% of the control group came out as securely attached in the Strange Situation. However, only 19% of the institutional group were securely attached, with 65% being classified with disorganised attachment. The description of disinhibited attachment applied to 44% of the institutionalised children as opposed to less than 20% of the controls.

Question 3

Effects of institutionalisation

Answer 3

Disinhibited attachment
Disinhibited attachment is a typical effect of spending time in an institution. They are equally friendly and affectionate towards people they know well or who are strangers that they have just met. This is highly unusual behaviour; remember that most children in their second year so strange anxiety.
Rutter (2006) has explained disinhibited attachment as an adaptation to living with multiple caregivers during the sensitive period for attachment formation. In poor quality institutions like those in Romania a child might have 50 carers none of whom there are enough they see enough to form a secure attachment.

Mental retardation
In Rutter’s study most children showed signs of retardation when they arrived in Britain. However, most of those adopted before they were six months old caught up with the control group by the age of four.
It appears that, like emotional development, damage to intellectual development as a result of institutionalisation can be recovered provided adoption takes place before the age of six months - the age at which attachments form.

Question 4

Evaluation of orphan studies (real-life application, few EVs than other orphan studies, the Romanian orphanages were not typical)

Answer 4

+ 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 (Langton 2006). For example, orphanages and children’s homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child and instead ensure there is a much smaller number of people, perhaps only one or two people, play a central role for the child. This person is called a key worker. Having a key worker means that that means that children have the chance to develop normal attachments and helps avoid disinhibited attachment.
This shows that such research has been immensely valuable in practical terms.

+ 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 institutionalise. For example, they may have experienced neglect, abuse or bereavement. These children were often traumatised by their experiences and suffered bereavement. It was very hard to observe the effects of institutionalisation in isolation because the children were dealing with multiple factors which functioned as a confounding participant variables.
In the case of the Romanian orphans it has been possible to study institutionalisation without these confounding variables, which means the findings have increased internal validity.

• Although much useful data about institutionalisation has come out of the Romanian orphan studies, 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. For example, 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.
  This is a limitation of the Romanian orphan studies because the unusual situational variables in the studies may after all lack generalisability.