ROMANIAN ORPHAN STUDIES: EFFECTS OF INSTITUTIONALISATION

Question 1

RUTTER’S ERA (English and Romanian Adoptee) STUDY (2011)

Answer 1

PROCEDURE:
- followed a group of 165 Romanian orphans adopted in Britain to test the extent good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions
- physical, cognitive & emotional development had been assessed at ages 4, 6, 11 and 15 years
- a group of 52 British children adopted at the same time = control group
FINDINGS:
- when they first arrived in the UK, 1/2 the adoptees showed signs of DELAYED INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT and the majority were severely undernourished
- at 11, the adopted children showed differential rates of recovery that were related to their age of adoption
- the mean IQ of those adopted BEFORE 6 months = 102, compared to those adopted between 6m-2yrs = 86. Those adopted after 2 years = 77
- these differences remained at 16
- difference in outcome of attachment related to whether adoption took place before or after 6 months
- those adopted AFTER 6m= signs of DISINHIBITED ATTACHMENT: attention seeking, clinginess and social behaviour directed indiscriminately towards all adults, familiar & unfamiliar
- those adopted before 6 months rarely displayed disinhibited attachment.

Question 2

THE BUCHAREST EARLY INTERVENTION PROJECT: ZEANAH(2005)

Answer 2

PROCEDURE:
- assessed 95 children ages 12-31 months who spent most of their lives in institutional care
- compared to a control group of 50 children who never lived in an institution
- attachment type measured using SS
- carers asked about signs of disinhibited attachment too
FINDINGS:
- 74% of the control group = securely attached
- only 19% of institutional group = secure, 65% = disinhibited attachment
- description of disinhibited attachment applied to 44% of institutionalised children as opposed to less than 20% of controls

Question 3

EFFECTS OF INSTITUTIONALISATION: DISINHIBITED ATTACHMENT

Answer 3

• equally friendly and affectionate towards people they know or to strangers they have just met
• highly unusual behaviour: most children in their 2nd year show stranger anxiety
  RUTTER (2006) explained that this type is an adaptation to living with multiple caregivers during the sensitive period for attachment formation
• in poor quality institutions, a child may have up to 50 carers, none of whom they see enough to form a secure attachment

Question 4

EFFECTS OF INSTITUTIONALISATION: MENTAL RETARDATION

Answer 4

• in Rutter’s study, most children showed signs of retardation when they arrived in Britain
• however, most of those adopted before they were 6 months old caught up with the control group by age 4.
• like emotional development, damage to intellectual development as a result of institutionalisation can be recovered, provided adoption takes place before 6 months.

Question 5

AO3: REAL LIFE APPLICATION

Answer 5

• studying Romanian orphans enhanced our understanding of the effects of institutionalisation
• results 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 no, of people, play a central role for the child: KEY WORKER
• children have the chance to develop normal attachments and avoid disinhibited attachment
• shows that research = immensely valuable in practical terms
  HIGH EXTERNAL VALIDITY

Question 6

AO3: FEWER EXTRANEOUS VARIABLES THAN OTHER ORPHAN STUDIES

Answer 6

• previous studies involved children who had experienced loss or trauma before they were institutionalised
• e.g. neglect, abuse or bereavement
• these children were often traumatised by their experience
• hard to observe the effects of institutionalisation in isolation as the children were dealing with multiple factors which functioned as CONFOUNDING PARTICIPANT VARIABLES.
• possible to study institutionalisation without confounding variables with Romanian orphans, INCREASED INTERNAL VALIDITY

Question 7

AO3: ETHICAL ISSUES

Answer 7

• one of the methodological issues with Rutter’s ERA is that children were not randomly assigned to conditions - researchers did not interfere with the adoption process (can be argued to be a GOOD thing: no researcher bias) which means that those children adopted early may have been the more sociable ones: a CONFOUNDING VARIABLE.
• Bucharest Early Intervention project did use random allocation, which is methodologically better as it removes the confounding variable of which children are chosen by parents BUT raises ethical issues