Romanian Orphan Studies

What are orphan studies?

These concern children placed in care because their parents cannot look after them.

What is an orphan?

A child whose parents have either died or have abandoned them permanently.

What is institutionalisation?

A term for the effects of living in an institutional setting.

What does the term insitution refer to?

A place like a hospital or orphanage where people live for long, continuous periods of time. In such places, there is often little emotional care provided. In attachment research we are interested in the effects of institutional care on children’s attachment and subsequent development.

What has research on maternal deprivation turned on orphan studies as a means of?

Studying the effects of deprivation on emotional and intellectual development.

What arose in Romania in the 1990s?

A tragic opportunity to took at the effects of institutional care and the consequent institutionalization. The former president required women to have five children. Many Romanian parents could not afford to keep them and they ended up in huge orphanages in poor conditions.

What was the procedure of Rutter et al.?

They followed a group of 165 Romanian orphans for many years as part of the English and Romanian adoptee (ERA) study. The orphans had been adopted by families in the UK. The aim was to investigate the extent to which good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions. Physical, cognitive and emotional development was assessed at ages 4,6,11,15 and 22-25 years. A group of children from the UK adopted served as a control group.

In the ERA, when the children first arrived in the UK, what did half of the adoptees show signs of?

Delayed intellectual development, and the majority were malnourished.

At age 11, what did the adopted children show differential rates of recovery in relation to?

Their age at adoption: the mean IQ of those adopted before the age of 6 months was 102, for those adopted between six months and two years, it was 86. These differences remained at age 16 (Beckett et al.). ADHD was more common in 15 and 22-25 year old samples (Kennedy et al.)

In the ERA, in terms of attachment, what did there appear to be a difference in outcome in relation to?

Whether adoption took place before or after six months.

In the ERA, what did the children adopted after sixth months show signs of?

Those adopted after showed signs of a particular attachment called disinhibited attachment.

In the ERA, what did the children adopted before sixth months show?

They rarely displayed disinhibited attachment.

What is disinhibited attachment?

AN adaptation to having multiple carers: symptoms include attention-seeking, clinginess and social behaviour directed indiscriminately towards all adults, both familiar and unfamiliar.

What was the procedure of Zeanah et al.’s research?

In the Budapest early intervention project (BEI), attachment was assessed (using the Strange Situation) on 95 Romanian children aged 12-31 months who had spent most of their lives in institutional care (90% on average). They were compared to a control group of 50 children who had never lived in one. In addition, carers were asked about unusual social behavior: symptoms of disinhibited attachment.

What were the findings of Zeanah et al.?

74% of the control group was classed as securely attached but only 19% of the institutional group were securely attached. The description of disinhibited attachment only applied to 44% of the institutionalized as opposed to less than 20% of the controls.

What do children who have spent their early lives in an institution often show?

Signs of disinhibited attachment, being equally friendly and affectionate towards familiar people and strangers - highly unusual behaviour,

What has Rutter et al. explained disinhibited attachment as?

An adaptation to living with multiple carers during the sensitive period for attachment. In poor quality institutions like those in Romania, a child might have 50 carers but won’t spend enough time with any of theme to be able to form a secure attachment.

In Rutter et al.’s study, what did most children show signs of?

Intellectual disability when they arrived in Britain. However, most of these adopted before they were six months caught up with the control group by age 4. It appears that, like emotional development, damage to intellectual development as a result of institutionalization can be recovered provided adoption takes place before the age of sixth months, when attachments form.

What are the strengths of the Romanian orphan studies?

• Real world application.

• Fewer confounding variables.

How is real-world application a strength of Romanian orphan studies?

Studying the Romanian orphans has improved psychologists’ understanding of the effects of early institutional care and how to prevent the worst of these effects (Langton). This has led to improvements in the conditions experienced by looked-after children. For example, children’s homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child. They instead tend to have one or two ‘key workers‘ who play a central role in their emotional care. Considerable effort is made to accommodate such children in foster care or have them adopted.

What does the real-world application mean?

That children in institutional care have a chance to develop normal attachments and disinhibited attachment is avoided.

How is fewer confounding variables a strength of the Romanian orphanage studies?

There is a lack of confounding variables: there were many orphans studies before the Romanian orphans became available to study. Many of the children in orphanages had experienced varying degrees of trauma and it is difficult to disentangle the effects of neglect, physical abuse and bereavement from those of institutional care. However, the children from the orphanages had been handed over by loving parents who could not afford to keep them.

What do the fewer confounding variables mean?

That the results of were much less likely to be confounded by other negative early experiences (higher internal validity).

What is the counterpoint to the fewer confounding variables?

On the other hand, studying children from Romanian orphanages may have introduced different confounding variables. The quality of care in these institutions was remarkably poor, with children receiving very little intellectual stimulation or comfort.

What does the counterpoint to the fewer confounding variables mean?

That the harmful effects seen in studies of Romanian orphans may represent the effects of poor institutional care rather than institutional care per se.

What is the limitation of the Romanian orphanage studies?

• Lack of adult data.

How is the lack of adult data a limitation of Romanian orphanage studies?

The latest data from the ERA study looked at children in their early to mid 20s. This means that we do not currently have data to answer some of the most interesting research questions about the long-term effects of institutional care. The research questions include the the lifetime prevalence of mental health problems and participants success in forming and maintaining adult romantic and parental relationships. It will take a long time to gather this data because of the longitudinal design of the study.

What does the lack of data mean?

That it will be some time before we know more completely what the long-term effects are for the Romanian orphans. It is possible that late-adopted children may ‘catch up‘.