Romanian orphan studies: Institutionalisation

Question 1

Romanian orphan problem

Answer 1

Romania had an orphan problem due to the banning of abortion and contraception. Leaving thousands of orphans to suffer at under-funded, state run orphanages.

Question 2

Institutionalisation

Answer 2

the effect of living in an institutional setting for a long continuous period. There’s often little emotional care provided

Question 3

what are the key studies to know for this topic?

Answer 3

Rutter and Songua-Barke (2010)
The Bucharest Early Intervention project: Zeenah et al (2005)

Question 4

Key study: Rutter and Songua-Barke (2010)

Answer 4

Aim: to examine the long term effects of institutionalisation in a longitudinal study.

Procedure: A longitudinal study of 165 Romanian orphans. 111 were adopted before age 2, and 54 before age 4. They were compared with a control group of 52 British children adopted before 6 months. The social, cognitive and physical development of all the infants were examined at regular intervals and interviews were conducted with adoptive parents and teachers.

Results: Romanian orphans were initially behind in social, cognitive, and physical development, e.g. they were physically smaller and weighed less. Those adopted before 6 months showed significant recovery. Those adopted after 6 months showed lasting deficits, including disinhibited attachment disorder.

Conclusion: institutionalisation can have severe long term effects on development, especially if children aren’t provided with adequate emotional caregiving. Early adoption reduces these effects.

Question 5

The Bucharest Early Intervention project: Zeenah et al (2005)

Answer 5

Aim: investigate attachment type of children who spent most of their life in institutional care.

Procedure: Nearly 100 children aged 12–31 months were assessed, with 90% having spent most of their lives in orphanages. They were compared with a control group of children who had not been institutionalised. Attachment type was measured using Ainsworth’s Strange Situation, and carers/parents were interviewed about behaviours such as clinginess and attention-seeking to assess whether disinhibited attachment was present

Findings: 74% of the control group were securely attached, compared to only 19% of the institutionalised group. 65% of the institutionalised children showed disinhibited attachment.

Conclusion: institutionalised children were less likely to form secure attachments and are more likely to experience a disinhibited attachment.

Question 6

Disinhibited attachment

Answer 6

being equally friendly and affectionate towards familiar people and strangers.

Question 7

Effects of institutionalisation

Answer 7

Physical development – deprivation dwarfism. Children from orphanages usually smaller. Lack of emotional care affects growth hormones causing underdevelopment, according to Gardner

Poor parenting – Quinten et al found 50 institutional women were experiencing extreme difficulties acting as parents compared to a group of 50 control women reared at home

Question 8

Evaluation of Romanian orphan studies (brief)

Answer 8

strength - real world application to social services
strength - longitudinal research
weakness - generalisation issues

Question 9

strengths of Romanian orphan studies

Answer 9

real world application to social services. Their study helped amend the adoption process. Nowadays infants are adopted as early as 1 week old, Singer et al states children are as securely attached to adoptive mothers and biologically related families. Therefore this demonstrates the benefit of institutionalisation research to help improve the lives of children.

longitudinal research. Their research took place over many years so allowing both short and long term effects of institutionalisation to be assessed and subsequently the benefits from adoption. Therefore their results appear to be a valid representation of the effects of being placed in institutional care as well as portraying the results of receiving quality follow-on emotional caregiving in a timely manner.

Question 10

weakness of Romanian orphan studies

Answer 10

there are issues of generalisation in Romanian orphan studies. Since the conditions of care were so dire they cannot be considered typical. It stands to reason that the results obtained from studying the Romanian institutions do not represent all situations where children are placed in care and experience deprivation. This lack of external validity is a result of the unusual situational variables due to the harsh political regimes at the time