Romanian Orphans Studies

Romanian Orphan Studies

Research that looks at the effects of deprivation on emotional and intellectual development include studies of institutionalisation. Michael Rutter in 2011 was able to look at the effects of institutional care and the consequences due to events in Romania in the 1990s.

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Rutter et als (2011) research is a longitudinal study of a group of 165 Romanian orphans who were compared to a group of 52 children from the UK adopted around the same time.

These 165 orphans have been adopted by families in the UK after being rescued from the orphanages in Romania after the collapse of the government there. When the children arrived in the UK half of the adoptees showed signs of delayed intellectual development and the majority of them were severely under nourished. Rutter’s study followed the children up until the age of 15 years. He found that the adopted children show different rates of recovery, which were related to the age of adoption. The children adopted before the age of six months old went on to have a normal IQ of 102 and appeared to have few emotional issues. The children adopted after the age of two years of age had a reduced IQ of 77 and suffered from emotional problems. The children adopted between the ages of six months and two years also had a reduced IQ of 86 and emotional problems. These differences remained at the age of 16. It appears that all children adopted after the age of six months showed what was described as disinhibited attachment styles. The symptoms of which include attention seeking, clinginess and unusual social behaviour which is directed indiscriminately towards all adults whether familiar or unfamiliar.

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Zeanah (2005) conducted what is referred to as the Bucharest Early Intervention Project. They assessed attachment in 95 Romanian children aged between 12 to 31 months who had spent most of their lives in institutional care. These were then compared to a control group of 50 children who had never lived in an institution. The attachment type was measured using the strange situation and carers who had to comment on their social behaviour, in particular whether they were clingy, attention seeking, or whether they showed indiscriminate social behaviour (which is indicative of a disinhibited attachment type). Zeanah found that 74% of the control group were classed as securely attached compared to 19% of the institutional group. In terms of disinhibited attachment, 44% of the institutionalised children were described as this as opposed to less than 20% of the control group.

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Effects of Institutionalisation:

Disinhibited attachment - where the children show equally friendly and affectionate behaviour towards familiar and unfamiliar people. This is really unusual behaviour as most children assessed using the strange situation appear to show stranger anxiety. Rutter (2006) suggested that this disinhibited attachment is a result of living with multiple caregivers during the sensitive period for attachment formation.

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Intellectual disability -  in Rutter’s study most children showed signs of intellect intellectual disability when they arrived in Britain however most of those adopted before they were six months of age caught up with the control group by the age of four. It appears like emotional development, children who have low IQ as a result of institutionalisation, can recover providing that adoption takes place before the age of six months.

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Evaluation

1. One strength of the Romanian orphan studies is that that they have real world application. Studies of Romanian orphans have helped to improve psychologists understanding of the effects of early institutional care and can give an insight into how to prevent prevent the worst of these effects. This has led to improvements in the conditions experienced by children who are looked after in the care system. For example, one practical application of this research is that children’s homes avoid having large number of caregivers for each child. Instead the children tend to have one or two key workers who play that essential role in the child’s emotional care. This means that children in institutional care have a chance to develop normal attachments and the effects of disinhibited attachment is avoided.

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2. Another strength of the Romanian orphan studies is that there is a lack of confounding variables. The orphanage studies which took place before had many methodological issues as it was difficult to control confounding variables. Many of these children had experienced very different types of trauma and it was therefore very difficult to disentangled the effects of neglect, physical abuse and bereavement from the effects of being in an institution. The children from the Romanian orphanages had, by contrast, all been handed over by their parents for similar reasons;  they could not afford to keep them. Therefore, this means that the results were much less likely to be confounded by other negative early experiences.

However, it could be argued that the children who were studied from the Romanian orphanages had often experienced very poor care and very little intellectual stimulation. This means that the harmful effects seen in these studies may represent the effects of poor institutional care rather than the effects of institutional care.

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3. One problem of the Romanian orphan studies is that there is little data which gives an insight into adult development. The latest data from them was collected when they were in their mid twenties, therefore it is difficult to know what the long-term effects are of institutional care. For example, it is not known whether they had a lifetime of mental health problems, or whether as adults they had problems forming romantic or parental relationship. This means it does not give us a complete picture of the long-term effects. It might be possible that these children may eventually catch up and develop normally.

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4. Another issue with the Romanian orphan studies is that that they are extremely socially sensitive. This is because the children typically went on to have very poor developmental outcomes. The results of these studies have been published whilst the children were growing up, meaning that their parents,  the teachers and anybody else who might know them might have had fewer expectations of their development. This might have meant that they were treated differently. This labelling potentially could create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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