Key study: Rutter and Songua-Barke (2010)

165 Romanion children who spent their early lives in Romanion institutions-thus suffering the effects of institutionalisation.

Of this group 111 children were adopted before the age of two years

a further 54 children were adopted bofore the age of four years old

The adoptees have been tested at regular intervals (4,6,11,15) to asses their:physical, cognitive and social development.

Information was also gathered by interviews with parents and teachers.

Their progress was campared to a control group of 52 British children adopted before the age of 6 months

At the time of adoption the romanion orphans lacked on all fronts compared to their british counterparts.

By the age of four some of the children had caught up with their british counter parts, this was true except for those that were adopted before the age of 6 months.

many of the orphans adopted after the age of 6 months showed disinhibited attachments and had problems with peer relationships.

This suggests that long-term consequences may not be as severe as first thought  if children have the oppotunity to form attachments before six months, however if the children do not for these attachments before six months then the consequences will be more severe.

Romanion orphans were also adopted in other parts of the world.

Le Mare and Audet (2006) have reported the findings of a longitudinal  study of 36 Romanian orphans adopted to families in Canada.

The dependant variable in this study being the growth and health of the orphans

The adopted orphans were physically smaller than a matched controll group at age 4 and a half, but the difference had dissapeared by 10 and a half the same was true for physical health

This suggests that recovery is possible from the effects of institutionalistation on physical development.

In a Romanion based study Zeanah et al 2005 compared 136 Romanion children who had on average spent 90% of their lives in an institution.

the children were aged 12-31 months and were assed in the strange situation.

The institutionalised children showed signs of disinhibited attachment.

A number of well documented effects of intatutionalisation...

-Physical undevelopment

-Intellectual underfunctioning

-Disinhibited attachment

-poor parenting

Some studies suggest that individulas who don'ts form a primary attachment within that early sensitive period are unable to recover

In the studies not all of the children are affected as strongly as others, this suggest individual differnces.

some of the children may have recieved special attention in the institution because they may have e.g smiled more, this would mean that they did have some kind of early attachments.

Some studies suggest that individulas who don'ts form a primary attachment within that early sensitive period are unable to recover

In the studies not all of the children are affected as strongly as others, this suggest individual differnces.

some of the children may have recieved special attention in the institution because they may have e.g smiled more, this would mean that they did have some kind of early attachments.

The current research with Romanion orphans points specifically to the importance of early adoption.

Mothers who were going to give up a baby for adoption were encouraged to spend a certain amount of time with the baby

By the time the baby had been adopted the senstitive period had likely passed, making it difficult to form secure attachments

Today most babies are adopted within the first week of birth and research shows that adoptive mothers and children are just as securely attached as non adoptive famililies (singer et al)

A longitudinal study is a study that is done over a long period of time, they follow the lives of children over many years.

They take a long time which means a lot of planing and and waiting for results but the benifits are large.

Without these studies we may mistakenly conclude that there are major effects due to early institutional care , whereas some of these studies show that the effects may dissapear after sufficient time and suitable high quality care.

The romanion orphans were faced with much more than emotional deprivation, the physical conditions were appaling, which impacted their health.

The lack of cognitive stimulation would also effect their development.

It is more likely that damage only occurs when when there are multiple risk factors.

Poor infancy care can lead to poor subsequent care, such as difficulty living in poverty, experiencing parental disharmony and so on (Turner and Lloyd, 1995)

One of the findings from the romanian study was that the last assesment (at age 11) a lower number of children had disinhibited attachment.

It may be that if the children have good quality emotional care he effects will dissapear over time.

It may be that ex-intitutional children need more time than normal to mature sufficiently and learn how to cope with relationships. This is is critcism of the research because it implies that the effects are irreversable whereas this may not be true.

this is further supported by Le Mare and Audets finding that physical underdevelopment had improved by age 11, thus suggesting that development does continue in these children, so they may have not reached their full potential in the studies so far.