Institution - a place dedicated to a particular task in which people live for a period of time.
Context
- Began under communist rule of Nicolae Ceausescu, 1966.
- Tried to boost population.
- Banned abortion and denied access to contraception.
- Many Romanians abandoned their newborn children, leaving thousands to suffer at under-funded, state-run orphanages
- Many were adopted by Western families.
Rutter & Songua-Barke (2010)
Procedure
- Wanted to test to what extend good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions
- Have followed 165 Romanian orphans since the 1990s
- Orphans spent their early lives in Romanian institutions
- Adopted in Britain
- Psychological, cognitive and emotional development assessments at 4,6 , 11 and 15 years
- Group of 52 British children adopted around the same time served as a control base
Findings
- Romanian orphans lagged behind the British adoptees on all measures of physical, cognitive and social development when first arriving in the UK
- Showed signs of mental underdevelopment and were severely malnourished
- Their rates of recovery were related to their age of adoption
Age
- By age 4, nearly all Romanian orphans who had been adopted before the age of 6 months had caught up with the British adoptees
- However, significant deficits still remain in those who had experienced institutional care beyond the age of 6 months
- Many after 6 months had problems with peer relationships
- They also showed disinhibited attachment
- A form of insecure attachment where children are equally friendly/affectionate towards they know well and strangers they just met
- They treat strangers with inappropriate overfriendliness and may be attention seeking