Romanian Orphanage Studies

Romanian Orphanage Studies

1. The conditions in orphanages had declined after 1982, as a result of economic problems

2. Rutter and Songua-Barke (2010)

   • Sample: 165 Romanian children previously lived in institutions (111 adopted before the age of 2 and 54 adopted by the age of 4). They were compared to 52 British children (adopted by the age of 6 months). They were tested regularly for physical, social and cognitive development at the ages of 4,6,11,15.
     • children not randomly assigned - children adopted early may have been more sociable (confounding variable)
   • Findings: at time of adoption - Romanian children behind the British children in all three aspects. Cognitively they were classified as mentally retarded. By age 4 - most of the Romanian children adopted by the age of 6 months had caught up with the British children. Many of the children adopted after the age of 6 months showed disinhibited attachment and had difficulties with peer relationships.

3. The Bucharest Early Intervention project

   • Zeanah et al. (2005) assessed and compared attachment in 95 children aged between 12-31 months who had spent an average of 90% of their life in an institution to a control group who spend their life in a “normal family” (attachment type was measured using the Strange Situation)
     • Randomly allocated - removes confounding variable of which children were chosen
   • Findings: 74% of control group - securely attached but only 19% of the institutionalised group. 65% of this group - classified as disorganised attachment.

4. LaMare and Audet

   • longitudinal study on physical growth and health of 36 Romanian orphans adopted by Canadian families and compared them to a group of children in normal Canadian families. Data were collected for each child: at 11 months after adoption, at 4.5 years of age and at 10.5 years of age.
   • Findings: The first two sets of results - adoptees were behind the non-institutionalised group however by 10.5 years old - no difference between the two groups. The Romanian orphans had caught up with the children raised in normal Canadian families.

5. real life application - enhanced understanding of the effects of institutionalisation leading to improvements on how children are cared for in institutions

6. increased internal validity due to fewer extraneous variables than other orphan studies

7. Romanian orphanages were not typical e.g. poor standard of care and lack of intellectual stimulation - lacks generalisability

8. Long term affects not yet clear