Romanian Orphan Studies: Effects of Institutionalisation

Question 1

Define ‘institutionalisation’

Answer 1

• Focuses on how time spent in an institution such as an orphanage can affect the development of children

Question 2

What are some of the effects of institutionalisation?

Answer 2

• Physical underdevelopment- children in institutional care are usually small, research has shown that lack of emotional care rather than poor nourishment is the cause of ‘deprivation dwarfism’
• Intellectual underfunctioning- cognitive development is also affected by emotional deprivation
• Disinhibited attachment- form of insecure attachment, where children do not discriminate between people they choose as attachment figures-may treat strangers w inapprppriate familiarity (overfriendliness) & may be attention seeking
• Poor parenting- Harlow showed that monkey’s raised w a surrogate mother went on to become poor parents

Question 3

What was the procedure for Rutter’s romanian orphan study?

Answer 3

• Study included 165 Romanian children who spent their early lives in Romanian institutions & suffered from effects of institutionalisation
• Of this group 111 were adopted before age of 2yrs & a further 54 by the age of 4yrs
• Adoptees had been tested at regular intervals ages 4,6,11,15 to assess their physical, cognitive & social development
• Progress had been compared to a control group of 52 british children adopted in the UK before the age of 6 months

Question 4

What were the findings for Rutter’s Romanian orphan studies?

Answer 4

• At time of adoption, Romanian orphans lagged behind their British counterparts on all measures of physical, cognitive & social development, they were smaller, weighed less & were classified as mentally retarded
• By age of 4 some of children has caught up w their british counterparts- this was true for almost all of RO’s adopted before age of 6 months
• Many of orphans adopted after 6 months showed disinhibited attachments & had problems w peer relationships

suggests long term consequences may be less severe than once thought IF children have opportunity to form attachments- however if not then consequences are likely to be severe

Question 5

Give another study of Romanian orphans.

Answer 5

• LeMare & Audet (2006)
• Reported findings from longitudinal study of 36 romanian orphans adopted to families in Canada
  The dv’s were physical growth & health
• Adopted orphans were physically smaller than a matched control group at age 4 & a half yrs
• But this difference had disappeared by 10 & a half yrs - the same was true for physical health

Suggests that recovery is possible from the effects of institutionalisation

Question 6

Give a third Romanian orphan study.

Answer 6

• Zeanah et al (2005)
• Compared 136 Romanian children who had on average spent 90% of their lives in an institution to a control group of Romanian children who had never been in an institution
• The childrn were aged 12-31 months & were assessed in the strange situation
  The institutionalised children showed signs of disinhibited attachment, attention seeking,clinginess etc.

Question 7

Give one limitation of Romanian orphan studies.

Answer 7

• Romanina orphan studies are socially sensitive because the results show that late adopted children typically have poor developmental outcomes
• Results have been published while children were growing up
• Meaning that parents,teachers & anyone else who knew them might have lowered their expectations & treated the adopted children differently
• This might even have created a self-fufilling prophecy.

Question 8

Give one strength of Romanian Orphan studies.

Answer 8

• OS of RO studies is their application to improve conditions for children growing up outside their family home
• Studying RO has improved psychologists understanding of effects of early institutionalisational care & how to prevent the worst of these effects
• This has led to improvements in the conditions experienced by looked-after children i.e children growing up in the care system
• For example, childrens homes now avoid having large numbers of caregives & instead have one or two ‘key workers’ who play central role in their emotional care
• This means children in instiutionalised care have a chance to develop normal attachments & disinhibited attachment is avoided

Question 9

Give another strength of the Romanian Orphan studies.

Answer 9

• OS: The lack of confounding variables - Prior to RO study there were many orphan studies where children had experienced varied degrees of trauma & is difficult to disentangle the effects of neglect, physcial abuse & bereavement from those of institutional care
• However the children from Romanian orphanages had in main, been handed over by loving parents who cld not afford to keep them
• This means results were much less likely to be confounded by other negative early experiences (higher internal validity)
• On the other hand, studying children from Romanian orphanages might have introduced different confounding variables.
• Quality of care in these institutions was remarkably poor w children recieving v little intellectual stimulation or comfort
• This means harmful effects seen in studies of Romanian orphans may represent the effects of poor institutionalisational care rather than institutional care per se