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Deprivation and Privation …
Deprivation and Privation (Deprivation occurs when an infant is separated from their primary caregiver.)
Short-term deprivation
Examples of short term deprivation include daycare and hospitalisation (either for the child or their attachment figure).
Before Bowlby’s work, hospitals focused entirely on the physical needs of the children and didn’t consider their emotional wellbeing. Children were allowed very little access to their parents when they were in hospital.
Spitz studied children in hospitals and found they became depressed if they suffered from deprivation. At first they were partially depressed but then it developed into what Spitz called hospitalism. Partial depression involved crying and clinging to observers, but severe depression was more concerning, involving weight loss, insomnia and a lack of emotion. Children who were reunited with their mothers while partially depressed could re-adjust in a few months.
Robertson and Robertson followed a 2 year old girl names Laura when she was in hospital for 8 days. Their research caused a great stir – her emotional welfare was affected greatly and it deteriorated throughout her stay. She ended up very withdrawn and no longer showed any affection towards her visiting mother.
They (R&R) repeated the procedure with more children and proposed 3 stages that children go through:
Protest – children were at first panic-stricken and upset, they cried frequently and tried to stop their parents leaving.
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Detachment – children eventually took an interest in their surroundings but if they reached this stage they often rejected their care giver.
Long-term deprivation
Long term deprivation includes things like the divorce of a parent or death. In 2001 statistics said that ¼ children are affected by divorce by their 16th birthday.
Cockett and Tripp aimed to compare the effects of parental discord and separation with 3 groups – intact, reordered and discordant. They found that on measures or self-image, social life, school success and health the reordered group came out worse and the intact best. Most of the parents in the sample had dealt with the reordering very badly, few had prepared their children and fewer than half had regular contact with the absent parent.
Fergusson et al used a different method and found that parental discord was more harmful than reordering.
The death of a parent has different psychological effects – blame, guilt, closure and levels of support all differ but it is said that allowing the child to talk about it openly will help.
Privation
Privation is different from deprivation in that a child will not have formed any attachment and will lack almost all types of socialisation.
Rutter compared 111 Romanian orphans with 52 British children and a sub-group of Romanians who had only spent a few weeks in an orphanage. Their IQ was tested as soon as they arrived in the UK and the average was 63. In terms of physical development 51% of the children were in the bottom 3% for weight. They were assessed again aged 4 years and the average IQ was 107 and 90 for those who had been adopted over the age of 6 months. The younger the child was when they were adopted, the better their development.
Koluchova studies Czech twins who had been severely abused by their stepmother after their father brought them home – they had been fostered by a family member following their mothers death. They were rescued age 7, severely retarded with no speech and had a fear of adults. Aged 14 they had normal speech, IQ and behaviour and by the age of 20 they had an above average IQ. The twins were in normal development when they left the care of their aunt at 18 months so it can be said that any developmental delay was as a result of privation.
Reducing the effects of privation can depend on many factors, and some studies show that the effects are reversible, whereas others suggest it is not. It can depend on how old the children were when they were found, in relation to critical ages for aspects of development like language development. Also, it can be considered that in some cases (Czech twins) the children have other children for support and that they can form attachments with one another. It could also depend on the quality of the care given afterwards.
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