Romanian Orphan Studies

Question 1

What is institutional care?

Answer 1

Children livining in an institution for a long period of time

Question 2

What are people who live institutional care likely to effect by?

Answer 2

Privation

Question 3

What is institutionalisation?

Answer 3

The effect of living in institutional care

Question 4

Who conducted a study on English and Romanian adoptee?

Answer 4

Rutter et al (2011)

Question 5

Who were the participants in Rutter et al (2011)?

Answer 5

• 165 Romanian orphans
• 111 of 165 adopted in England before age of 2
• 54 of 165 adopted in England before age of 4
• 52 British children adopted by 6 months

Question 6

Who acted as a control group in Rutter et al (2011)?

Answer 6

52 British children adopted before the age of 6 months

Question 7

At what ages were the children in the study of Rutter et al (2011) tested?

Answer 7

4,6,11 and 15

Question 8

What types of tests were the children in the study by Rutter et al (2011) tested upon?

Answer 8

• Physical
• Social
• Cognitive development

Question 9

What type of study was Rutter et al (2011)?

Answer 9

Longitudinal study

Question 10

What are the effects of instutionalisation?

Answer 10

• Disinhibited attachment

- Damage to intellectual development

Question 11

What were the finding of Rutter et al (2011)?

Answer 11

• 1/2 of orphans showed mental retardation
• Age 11 recovery rates were related to adoption age
• Before 6 months had mean IQ of 102
• After 6 months has mean IQ of 86
• After 2 years has mean IQ of 77

Question 12

What were the children’s characteristics if adopted after after 6 months in Rutter et al (2011) study?

Answer 12

Clinginess, attention-seeker, and indiscriminate affection to strangers

Question 13

What do the findings of Rutter et al (2011) support?

Answer 13

The sensitive period in development of attachment

Question 14

Does not forming an attachment before the age of 6 months have a long-lasting effects?

Answer 14

Yes

Question 15

What was the research of Zeanah et al (2005)?

Answer 15

Bucharest Early Intervention Project

Question 16

What was the procedure of Zeanah et al (2005)?

Answer 16

• Used strange situation to assess attachment
• 95 children age 12 to 31 months lives in institutional care
• Compared to control group of 50 children who never have been institutional care

Question 17

What are the findings of Zeanah et al (2005)?

Answer 17

• 19% of institutionalised group were securely

- 65% classified disorganised attachment

Question 18

What is the practical application of studying Romanian orphans?

Answer 18

-Children’s home avoid having large number or caregivers to each child

Question 19

Why does the Romanian orphan have fewer confounding variable?

Answer 19

• As most where abandoned at birth so most have the same/similar traumatic experience
• Increasing internal validity

Question 20

What are the issues with generalising the Romanian studies?

Answer 20

As the situation is so bad that it may not be applicable to other situations of institutional care or just general deprivation

Question 21

Why is the orphans not being randomly assigned a limitation?

Answer 21

As it increases the confounding variabels

Question 22

Which study randomly assigned the orphans?

Answer 22

Zeanah et al

Question 23

Does these studies learnt provide information on to the long term effects of early experience?

Answer 23

No, studies only go up to mid-teens