Institutionalisation-Romanian orphan studies*

Question 1

Institutionalisation

Answer 1

effects of living in an institution like a hospital or orphanage where they receive very little emotional care

Question 2

Romanian orphan studies

Answer 2

• after revolution many children were adopted by English families
• Gave psychologist opportunity to study emotional and intellectual effects of deprivation

Question 3

Rutter et als research
Procedure:

Answer 3

• followed 165 orphans adopted by British families
• Can good quality after-care make up for early attachment experience
• Their cognitive physical and emotional development was assessed at 4,6,11,15 and 22-25
• Compared to control group of British adoptees

Question 4

Rutter et als research
Findings

Answer 4

• first arrived—> malnourished and delayed intellectual development
• Rates of recovery at 11 years related to ages of adoption
• The later adoption -the lower their IQ
• When adopted after six months they showed signs of disinhibited attachment style; clingy attention seeking and social, potentially a result of living with multiple carers

Question 5

Zaenah et als research
Procedure :
Ss

Answer 5

The strange situation was used to assess the attachment in 95 Romanian orphan children aged 12 to 31 months who spent most of their lives in institutional care
They were compared to a control group of 50 children who would never experienced institutional care

Question 6

Zaenah et al
Findings :

Answer 6

• 19% experimental and 74% control securely attached
• 44% experimental and 20% control disinhibited attachment

Question 7

Effects of institutionalisation

Answer 7

• disinhibited attachment= shown by children who spent early lives in an institution .Equally affectionate to familiar and strangers. Adaptation from living with multiple caregivers
• Intellectual disability= Damage to intellectual development can be recovered if adopted before 6 months by the age of 4

Question 8

Real world application

Answer 8

• Help improve living conditions for children outside family home
• Improved understanding—> prevention
• Increases chances of children developing normally

Question 9

Fewer confounding variables

Answer 9

• in other orphan studies they had trauma however in this they didn’t
• Less likely to be confounded by other negative early experiences
• High internal validity

Question 10

Key worker provide emotional care

Answer 10

• chance of normal development

Question 11

Confounding variables

Answer 11

• confounding variables: poor conditions, little comfort, little emotional care
• poor affects in study maybe due to poor care

Question 12

Lack of adult data

Answer 12

• does not have answers about long-term effects as we only have results up until the early 20s
It will take too much time to have information about some key research questions

Question 13

Social sensitivity-sfp

Answer 13

Late adoption-low IQ. Maybe because how they are treated by parents and teachers and create a self fulfilling prophecy