INSTITUTIONALISATION → the effects of living in an institutional setting where children live for a long period of time (e.g. an orphanage). There is often little care provided, resulting in the inability to form attachments, which negatively impacts the child’s development

ORPHAN STUDIES → research investigating children placed in care because their parents have either died or have permanently abandoned them

RUTTER ERA (ENGLISH & ROMANIAN ADOPTEES) STUDY (2010)

PROCEDURE:

• Longitudinal study

• 165 Romanian orphans adopted in Britain (to test whether good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions)

• Physical, cognitive and emotional development assessed at 4, 6, 11 and 15 years, alongside a control group of 52 adopted British children

FINDINGS:

• Upon arrival: half of the adoptees showed signs of delayed intellectual development, and the majority were severely undernourished

• Age 11: mean IQ of those adopted before 6-months was 102. Those adopted between 6 months-2 years was 86

• Children adopted after 6-months showed signs of disinhibited attachment; characterised by attention-seeking, clinginess and social behaviour, directed only towards adults, both familiar and unfamiliar

• Those adopted before 6-months rarely had this attachment type

THE BUCHAREST EARLY INTERVENTION PROJECT - ZEANAH ET AL (2005)

PROCEDURE:

• Attachment assessed using the Strange Situation

• 95 children, aged between 12-31 months, who had spent 90% of their time in institutional care on average. They were compared to a control group of 50 children who had never lived in an institution

• Carers were asked about unusual social behaviour including clingy, attention-seeking behaviour directed inappropriately at all adults (a measure of disinhibited attachment)

FINDINGS:

• 19% of the institutional group identified as securely attached, compared to 74% of the control group

• 65% of the institutional group identified as having disorganised attachment. 44% of these children had a disinhibited attachment compared to less than 20% in the control group

~EFFECTS OF INSTITUTIONALISATION~

DISINHIBITED ATTACHMENT

• Children are equally friendly towards familiar and unfamiliar people

• Rutter (2006) explained this attachment type as an adaption to living with multiple caregivers during the sensitive period

INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY

• In the ERA study, most children showed signs of intellectual disability upon their arrival in Britain

• However, most of those adopted by 6-months had ‘caught up’ with the control group. This suggests that damage to intellectual development as a result of institutionalisation can be recovered if adoption takes place before 6-months

EVALUATION

Research Support

→ REAL WORLD APPLICATION

• One strength of the Romanian orphanage studies is their application to improve conditions for children growing up outside their family home.

• Studying the Romanian orphans has helped psychologist’s understanding of the effect of early institutional care, and how to prevent the worst of these effects.

• This had led to improvements in the care system. For example, the children now having one or two ‘key workers’ for each child who play a central role in their emotional care.

• This means that children in institutional care have a chance to develop normal attachments, and disinhibited attachment is avoided.

→ FEWER CONFOUNDING VARIABLES

• Another strength of the Romanian orphans study is the lack of confounding variables.

• There were many orphans studies before the Romanian orphans became available to study (e.g. orphans studied during the 2nd World War).

• Many of the children had experienced trauma and abuse, which is difficult to differentiate from the effects of institutional care. However, the Romanian orphans were mainly 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, resulting in higher internal validity.

• However, studying children from Romanian orphanages might have introduced different confounding variables.

• The quality of care in these institutions was remarkably poor, with children receiving little intellectual stimulation or comfort.

• This means that the harmful effects seen in the studies of Romanian orphans may represent the effects of poor institutional care rather than all institutional care.

Conflicting Evidence

→ LACK OF ADULT DATA

• One limitation of the Romanian orphanage studies is the current lack of data on adult development.

• The latest data from the ERA study looked at children in their early-to-mid 20’s.

• This means that we currently do not have data to answer some of the research questions regarding the long-term effects of early institutional care. These research questions include the lifetime prevalence of mental health problems and participant’s success in forming and maintaining relationships. It will take a long time to gather this data because of the longitudinal design of the study.

• This means it will be some time before we know more about what the long-term effects are for the Romanian orphans. It also disregards the fact that the late-adopted children may ‘catch up’.