Romanian Orphan Studies research

Rutter's English-Romanian Adoptee (ERA) study (2011)

• Procedure: Followed a group of Romanian orphans adopted in Britain to test to what extent good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions. Physical, cognitive and emotional development were tested at ages 4, 6, 11 and 15. A group of 52 British children adopted around the same time served as the control group
• Findings: When they first arrived in the UK, half the adoptees showed signs of mental retardation and the majority were severely undernourished. The differences in IQ remained until age 16 (i.e. the mean IQ of those adopted before 6 months…