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Romanian Orphan Studies. - Coggle Diagram
Romanian Orphan Studies.
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Rutter et al.
Procedure.
- Rutter (1998) studied Romanian orphans who had been placed in orphanages, aged 1-2 weeks old, with minimal adult contact.
- This was a Longitudinal study and natural experiment.
- He used a group of around 100 Romanian orphans and assessed at ages 4, 6 and 11, then re-assessed 21 years later.
- 58 babies were adopted before 6 months old and 59 between the ages of 6-24 months old. 48 babies were adopted late between 2-4 years old.
- These were the 3 conditions Rutter used in his study.
Findings.
- Those who were adopted by British families before 6 months old showed ‘normal’ emotional development compared with UK children adopted at the same age.
- Many adopted after 6 months old showed disinhibited attachments (e.g. attention seeking behavior towards all adults, lack of fear of strangers, inappropriate physical contact, lack of checking back to the parent in stressful situations) and had problems with peers.
Conclusion.
- This study suggests long-term consequences may be less severe than was once thought if children have the opportunity to form attachments. When children don’t form attachments, the consequences are likely to be severe.
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Zeanah et al.
Procedure.
- Zeanah et al in 2005 conducted the Bucharest early intervention project.
- They assessed the attachment in 95 Romanian children aged 12-31 months who had spent most of their lives in care.
- They compared them to a control group of 50 children who had never lived in care.
- There attachment type was measured using strange situation. Their carer were asked questions about anti-social behaviour, etc.
Findings.
- 74% of the control group were securely attached.
- 19% of the institutional group were securely attached.
- Disinhibited attachment applied to 44% of the institutional group.
- 20% of the control group applied to disinhibited attachment.
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Evaluation.
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Real-life Application
- We have a better understanding of the effects of Institutionalization. This understanding has lead to improvements to how children are cared for. For example, having a defined number of caregivers, instead of a large rotated amount.
Social Sensitivity.
- The Romanian orphan studies are socially sensitive because the results show that late adoption children usually have poor development outcomes.
- This was well known meaning, their parents, teachers and anyone else who knew them might have lowered their expectations and treated the adopted children differently.
- This might have created a self - fulfilling prophecy.
However...
- Much has been learned for the Romanian orphan studies and might benefit the future of institutionalization.
Longitudinal studies.
- Longitudinal studies take a lot of time which means a lot of planning and waiting for results. Without such studies we may mistakenly conclude that there are major effects due to early institutional care, where as some of these subjects show that the effects may disappear after sufficient time and with suitable high quality care.