Romanian Orphan studies: Institutionalisation Flashcards
1
Q
What is Institutionalisation?
A
- The effects of living in an institution such as an orphanage or children’s home
2
Q
Who conducted ‘The ERA study’ and what was the procedure?
A
- ‘The ERA study’ by Rutter was a longitudinal study that followed 165 Romanian orphans who had been adopted by families in the UK in hopes of learning if good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions
- was a control group of 52 children
3
Q
What did Rutter find?
A
- First arrived were malnourished and showed delayed intellectual development
- rates of recovery depends upon age of adoption
- Children adopted after the age of 6 months showed signs of Disinhibited attachment - attention seeking from all adults
4
Q
Who conducted the BEI project and what was the procedure and findings?
A
- Assessing attachment in 95 Romanian aged 12-31 months compared to a control group of 50
- Measured in the Strange Situation
- found 74% of the control group were securely attached whereas only 19% of the insitutionalised group were
- Disinhibited attachment was 44% for institutionalisation and <20% for control
5
Q
How can this research be applied to the real-world?
A
- Gives people a better understanding of the effects of institutionalisation and therefore a better understanding on how to help the suffering children e.g giving a child one key carer would help with disinhibited attachment
6
Q
In what sense does this study not apply to all institutions?
A
- The orphanages that the children came from were not only institutions but also had very poor levels of care and children were often neglected and malnourished so this may not apply to all institutions but just extreme situations such as Romania
7
Q
What is a limitation of this study?
A
- Despite the studies being longitudinal they stopped when the pps were early to mid 20s so we are unable to see the effects of institutionalisation on parenthood or later life
