institutionalisation

Question 1

Rutter et al procedure

Answer 1

• 165 romanian orphans
• english and romanian adoptee (ERA) study
• aim to investigate the extent to which good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions
• physical, cognitive and emotional development assessed at ages 4, 6, 11, 15 and 22-25
• group of 52 children from UK adopted around the same time served as a control group

Question 2

findings of rutter et al reseach

Answer 2

• at arrival in the uk 1/2 showed signs of delayed intellectual development
• majority were severely undernourished
• at 11 adopted children showed differential rates of recovery related to their age of adoption
• mean IQ of those adopted before 6 months was 102
• 86 for those adopted between 6 months and 2 years
• 77 for those after 2 years
• differences ramiend at age 16
• those adopted after 6 months had disinhibited attachment
• those adopted before 6 months rarely showed disinhibited attachment

Question 3

what is disinhibited attachement

Answer 3

• attention seeking
• clinginess
• social behavior directed indiscriminately towards all adults
• an adaptation to living with multiple caregivers during the sensitive period for attachment formation
• in a poor quality institution a child might have 50 carers
• but don’t spend enough time with any of them to be able to form a secure attachment

Question 4

Zeanah et al procedure

Answer 4

• Bucharest early intervention (BEI) project
• 95 romanian children
• 12 - 31 months
• spent most of their time (90%) in institutional care
• compared to a control group of 50 who had never lived in an institution
• attachment types measured using the strange situation
• caregivers asked about unusual social behavior
• measure of disinhibited attachment

Question 5

Zeanah et al findings

Answer 5

• 74% of control were securely attached
• only 19% of the institutional group were securely attached
• 44% of institutional disinhibited attachment
• less than 20% of control disinhibited attachment

Question 6

intellectual disability

Answer 6

• like emotional development damage to intellectual development as a result of institutionalization can be recovered
• provided adoption takes place before the age of 6 months
• the age at which attachment forms

Question 7

Strength of Romanian orphan studies

Answer 7

1. Real world application
   -has improved psychologist understanding of the effects of early institutional care and how to prevent the worst of these effects (Langton 2006)
   - children homes avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child
   - more efforts are made to put children on foster care or have them adopted
2. Fewer confounding variables
   - unlike other orphan studies the romiams had been handed over by parents who could not afford to keep them so no confounding variables of neglect physical abuse and beraevement

Question 8

limitations of the romanian orphanage studies

Answer 8

1. Lack of adult data
   - the latest data is from the children in their mid 20s so we do not know the long term effects of institutionalisation
   - questions on mental health and adult romances
   - long time to gather data as the study is longitudinal