Romanian orphan studies: Institutionalisation

Question 1

What was Rutter’s research?

Answer 1

• followed a group of 165 Romanian orphans as part of the English and Romanian adoptee study
• orphans had been adopted by families in the UK
• The aim of the ERA (English Romanian Adoptee) study was to see the extent that good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions
• physical, cognitive, and emotional development assessed at ages 4, 6, 11, 15 and 22-25 years
• A group of 52 children from the UK adopted around the same time served as a control group

Question 2

What was Rutter’s findings?

Answer 2

Intellectual Development:
- adoptees showed signs of delayed intellectual development and were severely malnourished
- at age 11 children showed different rates of recovery (dependent on the age they were adopted)
- Mean IQ for children adopted before the age of six months was 102, compared with 86 for those adopted between six months and two years, and 77 for those adopted after two years
- differences remained at age 16
- ADHD was more common in 15-18 and 22-25 year old samples

Attachment:
- attachment differed based on whether adoption took place before or after 6 months
- after 6 months showed signs of disinhibited attachment
- symptoms include attention seeking, clinginess and social behaviour directed indiscriminately towards all adults, both familiar and unfamiliar
- In contrast, those adopted before 6 months rarely displayed disinhibited attachment

Question 3

What was Zeanah’s research?

Answer 3

• conducted the Bucharest early intervention (BEI) project
• assessed 95 Romanian children aged 12-31 months - 90% spend life in institutional care
• compared to 50 children control group - no institutional care
• Their attachment tutor was measured using strange situation
• in addition carers were asked about social behaviour (E.g clingy/attention seeking) directed inappropriately at all adults ( a measure of disinhibited attachment)

Question 4

What were Zeanah’s findings?

Answer 4

• 74% of control group classes as securely attached in the SS
• 19% of institutional group were classified as securely attached
• in contrast, the description of disinhibited attachment applied to 44% of institutionalised children as opposed to less than 20% of the controls

Question 5

What are the effects of institutionalisation?

Answer 5

Disinhibited attachment:
- equally friendly/affectionate to familiar people and strangers
- unusual behaviour = most children in second year show stranger anxiety
- Rutter explained it as an adaptation to living with multiple caregivers during the sensitive period for attachment formation
- in poor quality institutions (like in Romania) a child might have 50 carers but does not spend enough time with any one of them to be able to form a secure attachment

Intellectual Disability:
- In Rutter’s study most of the children showed signs of intellectual disability (previously called retardation) when they arrived in Britain
- However, most adopted before 6 months old caught up with the control group by age 4
It appears that, like emotional development, damage to intellectual development as a result of institutionalisation can be recovered provided adoption takes place before the age of six months - the age at which attachments form

Question 6

What are the evaluation points for Romanian orphan studies: Institutionalisation?

Answer 6

Real-world application:
- can help improve conditions for children growing up outside their family home
- allowed psychologists to understand the effects of early institutional care and how to prevent the worst effects
- led to improvements in the conditions of care institutions
- children’s homes now avoid having a large number of carers for each child, instead they have one or two ‘key workers’ who play a central role in their emotional development/care
- institutional care is now seen as an undesirable option for looked-after children - considerable effort is made to accommodate such children in foster care or to have them adopted instead

Reduced confounding variables:
- children did not experience previous trauma, they were handed over by loving parents who could not afford to keep them
This means that results were much less likely to be confounded by other negative early experiences (internal validity)

Lack of adult data:
- latest data looked at children in early to mid 20’s
- cannot answer questions around the effects ‘long term’, such as forming romantic relationships as well are parental ones
- take a long time to gather this data due to longitudinal design (same participants studied over a long period)
This means it will be some time before we know more about what the long term effects are for the Romanian orphans. It is possible that late-adopted children may ‘catch up’.

Social sensitivity:
- due to results showing that late-adopted children typically have poor developmental outcomes
- people who knew them may have lowered expectations as results are published as they are growing up, or treated them differently
- may have even created a self fulfilling prophecy
On the other hand, much has been learned from the Romanian orphan studies that might benefit future institutionalised or potentially institutionalised children