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Romanian Orphan Studies, EVALUATION - Coggle Diagram
Romanian Orphan Studies
- effects of institutional care & consequent institutionalisation studied (effects of deprivation) in Romanian in 1990s
- Former president Ceauçescu required Romanian women to have 5 children
- most parents could not afford to keep their children so they ended up in orphanages in very poor conditions
- After 1989 Romanian revolution many children were adopted, some by British parents
Rutter et al (2011)
Procedure
- longitudinal study & natural experiment
- 165 Romanian orphan who had been adopted by British parents were assessed for physical, cognitive & emotional development at ages 4, 6, 11, 15 & 22-25
-52 British children adopted at some time served as control group
Findings
- when first in UK - 1/2 showed signs of intellectual disability & most were severely malnorished
- age 11 - mean IQ of those adopted before age of 6 months was 102, compared with 82 for those adopted between 6 months & 2 years & 77 for those adopted after 2 years
- these differences remained at age 16
- ADHD more common in 15 & 22-25 year old samples
- those children adopted after 6 months of age showed signs of disinhibited attachment
- those adopted before age of 6 months showed 'normal' emotional development when compared to other UK children adopted at same age (control group)
Zeanah et al (2005)
Procedure
- conducted Bucharest early intervention (BEI) project assessing attachment in 95 Romanian children aged 12-31 months who had spent most of their lives in institutional care
- compared to control group of 50 children who never lived in an institution
- attachment type measured using strange situation
- carers asked about unusual social behaviour (inc. clingy, attention-seeking behaviour) directed inappropriately at all adults (measure of disninhibited attachment)
Findings
- 74% of control group classed as securely attached
- 19% of institutionalised group were securley attached
- in contrast - description of disinhibited attachment applied to 44% of institutionalised children as opposed to less than 20% of the control
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EVALUATION
!STRENGTH!
real-world application
- application to improve conditions for children growing up outside family home
- improved psychologists understanding of effects of early institutional care & how to prevent worst of these effects
- led to improvements in conditions
- e.g. children's homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child
- instead, now tend to have 1 or 2 'key workers' who play central role in emotional care
- means children in institutional care have a chance to develop normal attachments & disinhibited attachment is avoided
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!LIMITATION!
lack of adult data
- current lack of data on adult development
- latest data from ERA study looked at children in early-mid 20s
- means no current data to answer some of most interesting research effects of early institutional care
- e.g. mental health problems, succession in forming & maintaining adult romantic & parental relationships
- would take a long time to gather this data because of the longitudinal design of study
- means it will be some time before we know more completely what the long-term effects are for Romanian Orphans
- possible that late adopted children may catch up