Romanian orphan studies: Institutionalisation Flashcards
Romanian orphan problem
Romania had an orphan problem due to the banning of abortion and contraception. Leaving thousands of orphans to suffer at under-funded, state run orphanages.
Institutionalisation
the effect of living in an institutional setting for a long continuous period. There’s often little emotional care provided
Key study: Rutter and Songua-Barke (2010)
Aim: to examine the long term effects of institutionalisation in a longitudinal study, beginning in early 1990’s called the ERA.
Procedure: sample was 165 children who spent early years in Romanian orphanage. 111 of these children were adopted by 2 years old. The remaining 54 children were adopted by 4 years old. They were compared to a control group of 52 British children who were adopted by 6 months old. The social, cognitive and physical development of all the infants were examined at regular intervals (ages 4, 6, 11, 15) and interviews were conducted with adoptive parents and teachers.
Results: at point of adoption, Romanian orphans showed delayed development on all elements of social, cognitive and physical progress. They were physically smaller, weighed less and many were classified as mentally retarded. Almost all Romanian orphans adopted before 6 months caught up to the British control group. After 6 months, they continued to show social, cognitive and physical deficit. They were often categorised as having disinhibited attachment disorder.
Conclusion: institutionalisation can have severe long term effects on development, especially if children aren’t provided with adequate emotional caregiving.
The Bucharest Early Intervention project: Zeenah et al (2005)
Aim: investigate attachment type of children who spent most of their life in institutional care.
Procedure: sample of almost 100 children between 12 and 31 months. 90% had spent most their life in orphanages. They were compared to a control group who hadn’t. Using Ainsworth’s strange situation, they assessed infants attachment type. Carers in institutions and parents of control group were asked about several aspects of infants behaviour (clinging, attention seeking, appropriateness of behaviour towards adults – to determine if disinhibited attachment disorder is present).
Findings: 74% of the control group had secure attachments. In contrast, only 19% of experimental group had secure attachments. In fact, 65% of experimental group appeared to have disinhibited attachment.
Conclusion: institutionalised children were less likely to form secure attachments and are more likely to experience a disinhibited attachment.
Disinhibited attachment
being equally friendly and affectionate towards familiar people and strangers.
Effects of institutionalisation
Physical development – deprivation dwarfism. Children from orphanages usually smaller. Lack of emotional care affects growth hormones causing underdevelopment, according to Gardner
Poor parenting – Quinten et al found 50 institutional women were experiencing extreme difficulties acting as parents compared to a group of 50 control women reared at home
Evaluation of Romanian orphan studies (brief)
strength - real world application
strength - longitudinal research
weakness - generalisation issues
strengths of Romanian orphan studies
real world application to social services. Their study helped amend the adoption process. Nowadays infants are adopted as early as 1 week old, Singer et al states children are as securely attached to adoptive mothers and biologically related families. Therefore this demonstrates the benefit of institutionalisation research to help improve the lives of children.
longitudinal research. Their research took place over many years so allowing both short and long term effects of institutionalisation to be assessed and subsequently the benefits from adoption. Therefore their results appear to be a valid representation of the effects of being placed in institutional care as well as portraying the results of receiving quality follow-on emotional caregiving in a timely manner.
weakness of Romanian orphan studies
there are issues of generalisation in Romanian orphan studies. Since the conditions of care were so dire they cannot be considered typical. It stands to reason that the results obtained from studying the Romanian institutions do not represent all situations where children are placed in care and experience deprivation. This lack of external validity is a result of the unusual situational variables due to the harsh political regimes at the time
