Romanian Orphan Studies: Effects of Institualisation Flashcards
Describe Rutter at al’s ERA study (English and Romanian adoptees study)
Rutter et al followed a group of Romanian orphans adopted in Britain, in order to test to what extent good care would make up for poor early experiences. Physical, cognitive and emotional development was assessed at the 4 stages: ages 4,6, 11 and 15-years. Group of British children adopted around the same time served as the control group.
INTELLECT:
When the Romanian adoptees first arrived in the UK half the adoptees showed signs of delayed intellectual development and the majority were severely undernourished. At age 11, the mean IQ for those adopted before the age of 6 months was 102, between the age of 6 months and 2 years was 86 and after the age of 2 years was 77. At the age of 16 these differences in IQ remained.
ATTACHMENT:
For those adopted after the age of 6 months, they showed signs of a particular attachment called disinhibited attachment. Symptoms of this attachment include attention-seeking, loneliness and social behaviour directed indiscriminately towards all adults, familiar and unfamiliar. For those adopted before the age of 6 months rarely displayed disinhibited attachment.
Describe Zeanah et al’s bucharest early intervention project
Zeanah et al assessed attachment in 95 children aged 12 to 31 months who spend most of their lives in institutional care. She compared this to the control group of 50 children who never lived in an institution. The children’s attachment type was measured using the strange situation. Carers were asked about unusual social behaviour including clinginess and attention-seeking behaviour (signs of a disinhibited attachment).
They found that 74% of the control group came out as securely attached in the strange situation. However only 90% of the institutional group were securely attached with 65% being classified with a disorganised attachment. The description of disinhibited attachment applied to 44% of the institutional children as opposed to less than 20% of the controls.
Describe the effects of institutionalisation
Disinhibited attachment is the typical effect of spending time at an institution. They are equally friendly and affectionate to people they know as well people that they have just met. This is higher unusual behaviour; as most children in their second year show stranger anxiety. Rutter has explained disinhibited attachment is an adaptation to living with multiple caregivers during the sensitive period for attachment formation. In poor quality institutions like those in Romania a child might have 50 carers none of whom they see enough to form a secure attachment.
In Rutter study most children showed signs of retardation when they arrived in Britain. However, most of those adopted before they were six months old caught up with the control group by the age of 4. It appears that, like emotional development, damage to intellectual development as a result of institualisation can be recovered provided adoption takes place before the age of 6-months - the age at which attachments form.
Evaluate research into Romanian orphans/the effects of institutionalisation
Studying the Romanian orphans has enhanced our understanding of the effects of institutionalisation. Such results have led to improvements in the way children are cared for in institutions. For example, orphanages and children’s homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child and instead ensure that much smaller number people, perhaps one or two people, play a central role for a child. This person is called a key worker. Having a key worker means that children have the chance to develop normal attachments and helps disinhibited attachment. This shows that research into Romanian orphans has been immensely valuable in practical terms.
There were many orphan studies before the Romanian orphans became available to study but often these studies involved children who had experienced loss or trauma before they were institutionalised. For example, they may have experienced neglect or abuse. These children were often traumatized by the experiences and suffered bereavement. It was very hard to observe the effects of institutionalisation in isolation because the children were dealing with multiple factors which functioned as confounding participant variables. In the case of Romanian orphans it has been possible to study institutionalisation without these confounding variables, which means our findings have increased internal validity.
Although much useful data about institutionalisation has come out of Romanian orphan studies, it is possible conditions were so bad that results cannot be applied to understanding the impact of better quality institutional care or indeed any situation where children experience deprivation. For example, Romanian orphanages had particular poor standards, especially when it came to any relationship with the children, and extremely low levels of intellectual stimulation. This is a limitation of the Romanian orphan studies because the unusual situational variables means the studies may after all lack generalisability.
What are the methodological issues for Rutter’s ERA project is that children were not randomly assigned to conditions. The researchers did not interfere with the adoption process, which means that those children adopted early may have been the most sociable ones, a confounding variable. To control for such variables, the Bucharest early intervention project, Romanian orphans were randomly allocated to institutional care or fostering. This is methodologically better because it removes the confounding variables of which children are chosen by parents but it raises ethical issues.
