Specification: Romanian orphan studies: effects of institutionalisation. 

Romanian Orphan Studies: Effects of Institutionalisation

During the 1990s the unveiling of political events in Romania allowed psychologists to study the effects of institutionalisation. The Western world became aware that record numbers of children had been placed in orphanages as parents could not cope with the strict government rules. Under dictatorship, abortion was banned and couples were required to birth large numbers of children in a bid to boost the population. At the end of this thirty years of this regime, more than 100,000 children were reported to be in 600 stateoperated orphanages. 

Key Study: Rutter and Songua-Barke (2010)

Aim: To examine the long-term effects of institutionalisation in a longitudinal study, beginning in the early 1990s, called the ERA (English and Romanian Adoptees). 

Method: 165 children who had spent their early years in a Romanian orphanage formed the experimental group. 111 of these children were adopted before the age of two, while the remaining 54 were adopted by the age of four. They were compared to a control group of 52 British children, who were adopted before they were six months old. The social, cognitive and physical development of all infants was examined at regular intervals (age 4, 6, 11 and 15) and interviews were conducted with adoptive parents and teachers. 

Results: At the point of adoption, the Romanian orphans showed delayed development on all elements of social, cognitive and physical progress. They were physically smaller, weighed less on average and many were classified as mentally retarded. However, almost all the Romanian orphans who were adopted before the age of six months caught up on these measures of development when compared to the British control group. The Romanian children who were adopted after six months continued to show significant deficits in terms of social, cognitive and physical development. They were more likely to experience difficulties with making or maintaining peer relationships and were often categorised as having disinhibited attachment disorder. 

Conclusion: Institutionalisation can have severe long-term effects on development, especially if children are not provided with adequate emotional caregiving, i.e. adopted by two years old.  

The Bucharest Early Intervention Project: Zeenah et al. (2005)

Aim: To investigate attachment type of children who had spent most of their life in institutional care.

Method: A sample of almost one hundred children aged between 12 months and 31 months, 90% of whom had spent most of their lives in an orphanage, were compared to a control group who had never been institutionalised. Using the strange situation methodology, the researchers assessed the infants’ attachment type. Additionally, the carers in the institution and parents of the control group children were asked about several aspects of the infants’ behaviour including: clinging, attention seeking and appropriateness of behaviour towards adults (to determine if disinhibited attachment disorder was present).  

Results: Zeenah et al. found that almost three quarters (74%) of the control group were classified as being securely attached to their caregivers. Conversely, less than one fifth (19%) of infants from the experimental group, who had spent most of their life in institutional care, were deemed to have a secure attachment. In fact, almost two-thirds of these infants (65%) appeared to have a disinhibited attachment. 

Conclusion: Infants who spend their early years in institutional care, with the absence of a primary attachment figure to provide consistent and sensitive emotional caregiving, are less likely to develop a secure attachment and are far more likely, as a result, to experience a disinhibited attachment. 

Evaluation 

One strength of Rutter and Songua-Barke’s research findings from studying the effects of institutionalisation is their real-world application to social services. Their study helped change the way that children are looked after, especially when it comes to the adoption process. Historically, mothers were encouraged to keep their babies for a substantial period by which time the critical period for attachment formation may have passed. Nowadays, infants are adopted as early as one-week-old and Singer et al. (1985) states that children are as securely attached to their adoptive mothers and biologically related families. This demonstrates the benefit of institutionalisation research to help improve the lives of children.

Another strength of Rutter and Songua-Barke’s research is that their research was longitudinal. Their research took place over many years allowing them to assess both the short-term and long-term effects of institutionalisation and subsequent benefits from adoption. Therefore, the results of their research appear to be a valid representation of the effects of being placed in institutional care as well as portraying the results of receiving quality follow-on emotional caregiving in a timely manner.

A criticism of Romanian orphan research is that deprivation is only one factor in development. The orphans experienced very little or no mental stimulation and were often malnourished. This suggests there are multiple risk factors involved in ascertaining the effects of institutional care. Therefore, it is difficult to interpret the results of studies as the sole effect of deprivation as there are many different influences that affected these children, such as living in poverty. 

There are issues of generalisation from Romanian orphan studies. Since the conditions of care were so dire for the Romanian orphans they cannot be considered typical. It stands to reason that the results obtained from studying the Romanian institutions do not represent all situations where children are placed in care and experience deprivation. This lack of external validity is a result of the unusual situational variables due to the harsh political regimes at the time.