effects of institutionalisation

Question 1

what is an institution?

Answer 1

An institution is a place dedicated to a particular task, such as looking after children awaiting adoption, or caring for the mentally ill, or looking after patients in hospital.

Question 2

what do children experience?

Answer 2

Privation - occurs when children have never formed an attachment. This is more likely to happen in institutions if there is poor emotional care

Question 3

what was happening in romania?

Answer 3

In 1966, the Romanian government, under the communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, tried to boost the population by encouraging parents to have large families and banning abortion and many forms of contraception.
Consequently many babies could not be cared for by their families.

Question 4

what was the aim of rutter’s era study?

Answer 4

to invetsiagte the effects of institutitonalisation in a group of 165 romanian orphans

Question 5

what was rutter’s procedure?

Answer 5

• studied a group of 165 romainian orphans and assessed them at 4, 6 and 11 years old in terms of psychological, physical and emotional development
• these results were compared to 50 children adopted in Britain at roughly the same time, acted as a control group

Question 6

findings of rutter’s research

Answer 6

• majority were malnourished
• mean IQ dependent on the age the orphans was adopted e.g. those adopted before 6 months had IQ 25 points higher than those adopted after 2 years
• those adopted after 6 months showed signs of disinhibited, whereas those adopted before 6 months rarely showed such signs

symptoms of disinhibited attachment include attention-seeking, clinginess and social behaviour directed indiscriminately towards all adults, whether familiar or unfamiliar - thought to be the result of too many caregivers during the critical period

Question 7

conclusion

Answer 7

• demonstrated the importance and effects of adopting orphans at different ages, which was directly linked to their rate of recovery
• full recovery could be made if adoption occurred before six months

Question 8

evaluation - strength

Answer 8

• main advantage compared to other adoption studies is that he was to study the effects of institutionalization in isolation, through removing the extraneous and confounding variables of PTSD and trauma associated with war orphans. confidence that they’re drawing in reliable conclusions that truly show the effects of institutionalization

Question 9

evaluation - weakness

Answer 9

• methodological issue - focus on short term recovery, rather than long term rates e.g just because a child adopted age 3 doesn’t show long term intellectual development age 4 does not mean the child has intellectual disability.
• to increase validity of conclusions, study should be taken across a longer time scale

Question 10

evaluation - weakness

Answer 10

• children were not randomly assigned for adoption, but were selected by new parents in romania
• possibly resulted in bias with more sociable infants picked for adoption at a younger age

Question 11

evaluation - strength

Answer 11

• practical applications as a result of the romainian orphan study
• this research has changed policies around adoption and care in orphanages/other institutional settings
• e.g. critical workers in institutions give a higher level of care to infants and focus on ensuring early age of adoption.