Effects of Institutionalisation

Explain Institutionalisation

• living arrangements outside family home e.g orphanages etc

• can result in child adopting rules + norms of institution that can impair functioning

• lots of carers in institutions = difficulty in forming attachments

• if children in institution since babies then privation may result where child has no attachments at all

Describe Rutter’s English and Romanian study

• longitudinal research

• 165 romanian children adopted bef 3 ½ by UK fam compared to control of 52 british adopted children who didn’t experience deprivation

• all assessed at 4,6,11,15 for variety of physical, intellectual + cog functioning abilities

• found age children were adopted often impacted on recovery rates

  • on arrival to UK 51% had weight in bottom 3% of pop + shorter than normal for age

  • by 6 yrs most showed signs of disinhibited attachment (lack of wariness of strangers, inappropriate affectionate behaviour + walking away with stranger)

  • IQ at 11 yrs was 102 - adopted within 6 months, 86 - adopted within 6 mnths 2yrs

• those adopted after 6 months showed poor recovery compared to bef 6 months

• suggests maternal dep during critical period causes long term emotional + mental health affects

Evaluate real-life application of Romain orphan research

-strength is that has valuable real-life applications

-improved the way children cared for in institutions

-children now assigned a key worker and only 1 or 2 caregivers so they have chance to develop normal attachment and avoid disinhibited attachments

-further increases support for research and it's enhanced our understanding of negative effects of institutionalisation and shown practical ways to improve lives of children

Evaluate nature of experiment

-weakness is that it's a natural experiment so issues with establishing cause and effects and extraneous variables

-Rutter couldn't randomly allocate children to conditions so couldn't who was adopted first and later as more likeable children could have been adopted first or some who communicated better were treated better

-Rutter also acknowledged that it was difficult to find info about quality of care children received as some might have received special treatment if they smiled more

-lack of control of extraneous variable decreases internal validity and weakens support for some conclusions of the research

Evaluate affect of study

• strength is that its longitudinal so can see long term affects on ppt throughout their lives

• Mackes took MRI scans of 67 of og 165 orphans + 52 og british adoptess who werent institutionalised aged 23-28 yrs

• brains of romanian adoptees institutionalised were 8.6% smaller than british + the longer they spend in institution the smaller total brain volume

• deprivation related changes in brain volume associated with lower IQ and symptoms of ADHD

• support findings of study