SD 2; Romanian orphan studies (Y1)

English and Romanian Adoptee Studies (ERA)

Facilitating factors - early entry into institutions, determined by fall of Ceausescu regime rather than disability etc

  • Onset and offset of deprivation could be timed precisely
  • Little sample attrition over time - researchers had good relationships with families
  • Relatively large sample
  • Systematic approach

Study of Romanian Adoptees (Rutter et al, 1998) - examined extent of developmental deficit and catch up following adoption after severe global early privation at 4 years:

  • Sample - 111 Romanian children who entered UK prior to 2 years
  • 52 UK adopted same age children placed before 6 months
  • Stratified sample of Romanian orphans - less than 6 months adopted, 6-24 months and 24-43 months
  • UK comparison group
  • Investigated cognitive and behavioural outcomes at different age points (4, 6, 11 and 15)
  • Those adopted sooner than 6 months performed better in terms of IQ development etc, and Romanian orphans adopted before 6 months in comparison to UK group were closer in developmental progress than those adopted after 6 months

Main findings: Adverse early experiences may, but do not necessarily, have serious lasting effects on development

  • Individuals have a great deal of resilience
  • Most human characteristics, except language, are strongly canalised
  • Certain factors increase the chance of lasting handicaps, whilst others may be protective
  • Dramatic catch up following a positive change in rearing
  • Duration of exposure to deprivation most powerful predictor of individual differences in intellectual development at age when adopted at 4 years

Key findings of ERA research team from longitudinal research:

  1. The developmental improvements made by the Romanian children were rapid and often continued over a period of several years
  2. A proportion of the Romanian children adopted after 6 months experienced difficulties uncommon in the UK group - autistic like qualities, problems forming appropriate attachments and social functioning (no IWM) and inattention, overactivity and poor mental functioning
  3. One third of the Romanian children placed for adoption after the age of 6 months experienced problems requiring the intervention of professional educational, psychological or psychiatric services
  4. A substantial minority of Romanian children seemed to be functioning normally in all respects at age 11 in spite of early adverse experiences
  5. Degree to which Romanian children were under-nourished had minor effects on psychological outcomes
  6. Romanian children with even a very low level of language at time of adoption had higher average IQs aged 11 than those with no language skills
  7. Follow ups at 15, in young adulthood, revealed unusual patterns of persisting, specific patterns of deficits and problems that are deprivation specific, which have emotional, conduct and peer-relationship consequences (attachment lost)

Implications of the research for the theory of severe deprivation (loss of an attachment bond which has consequences for development, or loss of normal environments for healthy development):

  • Has highlighted that problems in attachment / social relations are not inevitable given prolonged severe early deprivation - some hetereogenity amongst individuals, so recovery is possible and this is not consistent with Bowlby's argument that it is an irreversible process
  • Evidence fits better with sensitive periods rather than critical ones
  • Highlights the importance of early adoption where necessary to reduce likelihood of subsequent developmental problems

Early orphanage studies; Skeels and Dye (1939), Dennis (1973), Hodges and Tizard

Skeels and Dye (1939) - 2 developmentally delayed 18 month old children

  • Transferred from orphanage to woman's ward in an institution for adults with severe learning difficulties
  • Staff and patients provided love and attention
  • After 15 months of increased stimulation, the children's intelligence grew to the normal range and children who remained in the orphanage did not show this same progress

Hodges and Tizard - effect of early expeirence on later behaviour and development, specifically the effect of institutional upbringing on late attachment to adults and peers, within and outside the family

Bowlby's maternal deprivation hypothesis

Dennis (1973) - study in a Lebanese orphanage called the Creche:

  • Orphanage conditions - not enough to eat or drink, little opportunity to explore environment, little auditory or visual stimulation and large child:caregiver ratios

Symptoms when discovered:

  • Underweight, unresponsive, immobile, low level / no play
  • Impairments in non-verbal communication, social interaction, cognition, spoken language, comprehension and motor skills

Boys - at 6 years went to work at orphanage designed to teach a wide range of skills to equip them for outside world, environment more stimulating

  • By age 15, average IQ was 80

Girls - at 6 years went to an orphanage with emphasis on domestic work, with an unstimulating environment

  • Average IQ at age 16 was 50

Dennis followed these children after their adoption following a legislation change - children adopted before the age of 2 regained normal IQ

Theory - attachment theory; emotional deprivation in young children may have serious and long lasting effects

  • Bowlby - maternal deprivation hypothesis of child being deprived of maternal care during critical period of development will suffer irreversible psychological damage

Method: Longitudinal study, sample of 34 children aged 16 who had been instituionalised by 4 months then adopted or restored

  • institution had a policy which insisted carers did not form attachments to children
  • Before the age of 4, the child had, on average, 50 carers
  • IV - group of participant being ex institional, restored or adopted, a matched control and a school comparison
  • DV - the responses to the questionnaires and asessments, and relationships with family, peers and teachers
  • Participant groups - 11 restored to bio parents, 23 adopted by age of 4
  • Comparsion group 1 - each particpant matached on age, sex, position in family, one or two parent, socio-economic status and to another 16 year old child
  • Comparison group 2 - a same age same sex school friend

Findings - attachment behaviour; at 2 appeared to have multiple attachments:

  • would run to be picked up when anyone familiar entered the room and cried when they left
  • More afraid of strangers than a home reared comparison group
  • By 4 years 70% of those still in instituions were said 'not too care too deeply about anyone'
  • Relationships with family - adopted group as closely attached as controls, restored group less attached, less cuddly and less involved in family, with ex institution children having more reported issues with siblings, and restored having the most
  • Peer relationships - both groups less likely to have a special friend, not popular, do not turn to peers for support, less likely to be in a crowd, more quarrelsome and more likely to bully

Explanations for behaviour

  1. Class related - adopted families are more middle class than those of restored, able to help more
  2. Adopted children may have suffered poor self esteem, as a result of being adopted, affecting outside relationships
  3. Adoptive parents put more effort into relationships, explaining better relationship than biological parents, but also explains why neither group gets on with peers
  1. The ability to form affectionate relationships with peers affected by early life emotional deprivation - thus adopteds able to recover the family relationships but not with peers
  2. Ex institutional children lag behind controls in emotional development, may catch up later
  3. Parents of restored children felt guilty because children had been institutionalized and that the restored children were resentful at having been institutionalized while their siblings were not

Data collection - interview with participant, interview with parents, self reported self difficulties questionnaire, questionnaire to teachers about peer relationships and the Rutter B scale screening for psychiatric problems


Methodological issues -

  • Attrition of sample
  • Small sample
  • Used self report only
  • Design issues - no random assignment of restored and adopted
  • Are initial deficits due to malnutrition and social adversity and are improvements in these areas responsible for gains in development? - no causation, attachment not clearly responsible

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XCnGrQa0SXngfl8EP-R1WpOjrrod5jFEniIWlP1BQYQ/edit

Children should not be without their attachment figure when the primary attachment period is occurring - Bowlby's comments n the importance of emotional support from a mother led to changes in orphanage and care systems - affectionless psychopathy and low IQ

Suggested mothers should not be separated from young children, especially between the ages of 6 months and 3 years (impacted a generation of mothers

Ways this hypothesis has been discredited

Bowlby's idea of a critical period of attachment came from ethological work and imprinting, but this is not a mammalian characteristic for primates; 9 month fear of strangers suggests attachment, but recent research has suggested that 1-2 year olds form new social relationships and therefore several strong attachment relationships;

  • Monotropy suggestion is unfounded, multiple attachments are the norm (S&E)

Characteristic sequence of events happens when child is institutionalised - protest, despair, denial and detachment - however, Robertson et al found that any other compensating attachment figure prevents distress and the child will still remain concerned and happy at reunion (e.g. foster parents already have a relationship)

Bowlby quoted research evidence that suggested children in long term institutional settings (orphanages or foundling homes) were retarded socially, linguistically, cognitively supposedly due to deprivation

  • This only happens if institutional care is poor; interaction = good development, and so deprivation alone does not have these effects

Harlow and adverse separation effects - total or partial separation of monkeys

  • When placed with others, they were terrified and socially maladapted, anxious, self injuring and hyper aggressive - if isolated for more than 3 months, they could not recover
  • Abused children did not care for them
  • however, this was the result of the interaction between maternal and sensory deprivation, and severe deficits can be corrected, such as pairing an isolated monkey with a young one
  • Corrective treatments solve deprivation - does not act alone and is not irrversible, contradicting Bowlby

44 thieves study - delinquency and behaviour problems linked to deprivation

  • Not causal
  • Rutter - discord of separating families causes later issues, not the actual separation

Bowlby's work did improve institutional care by allowing better access to parents and children in hospitals and greater awareness of children's emotional needs, but the guilt caused by monotropism affected women for generations

Extreme shared case also causes problems - situations which prevents any strong attachment formation

  • Tizard - children in institutional settings may have many short term carers leading to attention seeking, hyperactivity and clinginess- adverse effects could be genetic or from prior factors such as troubled families with psychosocial adversity

Roy, Rutter and Pickles - outcomes at 6 years for 19 children in institutional care and 19 in continuous foster care all with troubled families

  • Both had worse outcomes than peers, but institutional care group did worse on inattention, hyperactivity and emotional disturbance, likely due to multiple caregivers

Kibbutzim - strong egalitarian philosophy of community child raising away from parents - raised in group environment

  • Led to more insecure ambivalent attachment due to collective sleeping arrangements, and this is too disimiar to natural expectations of parents and infants
  • Scharf - less autonomous ratings for collective sleepers
  • However, does build social group-orientated skills and close peer relationships