Institutionalisation

Institutionalisation

The effects of living in an institution setting e.g. hospital

Disinhibited attachment

A type of attachment where children show attanetion seekin, clinginess and over familiarity towards adults and children wether they know them or not

Ceaucescu

President of Romania , communist so meant little money, wanted to grow population of Romania so encouraged big families and banned abortion and contraception

Consequences of caeucescu

Many Romanians couldn’t afford to look after children, more than 100,000 children in state run orphanages

Conditions in orphanages

Very high child : carer ratios - too few carers

Rigid insensitive routines

Lack of active engagement with children

Little intervention for aggression

Consequences of orphanages

Will want attention

May not know right from wrong

IQ development will be lower

Later attachment relationships affected

Collapse of communist regime

Led to discovery of orphanages

Many children adopted into western families

ERA study procedure

111 orphans adopted before 2, 54 adopted by age 4, compared to a control group of 52 British children adopted by 6 months, assessed regularly for physical, social, and cognitive development at ages 4,611, and 15

ERA study findings

Initial delay - Romanian children were significantly behind British

Those adopted before 6 months largely caught up - IQ - 102 , while those adopted after showed lasting delays

Effects of institutionalisation

Physical underdevelopment

Intellectual underdevelopment

Disinhibited attachment

Poor parenting - Harlow + monkeys

Evaluation of research into effects of institutionalisation

Longitudinal studies - valid data , dont have to look back retrospectively

Application to real life - can be applied to improve lives of children in care

Doesn’t account for individual differences - research shows some children aren’t as strongly affected, rutter suggests some may have received special attention so they coped better

BEIP rationale

Other studies had limitations such as not looking at children before their adoption.

BEIP procedure

136 children aged 6-36 months + control group of 72 children never institutionalised

Children were randomly allocated to institutional care and fostering conditions

Children had assessments e.g IQ + attachment types at different ages

BEIP results

By 4.5, the foster care group had higher IQ and language development

But they were typically behind control group

Substantial variations so some children more resilient than others

BEIP conclusions

Institutional care disadvantages children in cognitive and emotional development

Fostering has better outcomes + advantage is greater when they were fostered earlier

BEIP ethical issues

Half the children placed in a condition where it was believed that the outcome could be poor