Institutionalisation

Institutionalisation

1. Definition

   • Institutionalisation refers to children brought up in care homes such as orphanages. They are unlikely to have any contact with family members

2. Privation

   • the failure to form an attachment.

3. Key Study

   • Rutter et al.
   • On-going longitudinal study
   • Compared Romanian orphans who were adopted by UK families with 52 UK born adoptees placed in families before 6 months of age
   • The Romanian adoptees entered the orphanage as small babies between one and two weeks old. Conditions in the institutions were very poor. Romanian children showed evidence of severe malnourishment. They were in the bottom third of the population for weight and head size
     • 58 babies were adopted before they were 6 months old, 59 were adopted between 6 and 24 months of age
     • Some of the children have been followed up at ages four, six and eleven years, using a range of measures including interviews, observations of the child’s behaviour, and teacher/peer reports

4. FIndings of study

   • When the Romanian orphans first arrived, they showed severe cognititve deficiancy
   • At age 4: the children who were adopted before the ages of 6 months had caught up with the UK born children in IQ
   • The children adopted after 6 months had severe ongoing deficits
   • At age 11: the mean IQ for those adopted before 6 months was 102
   • After 6 months the mean IQ for the children was 82
   • At age 6: Evidence of disinhibited attachment in the Romanian orphans
   • more likely to go off with strangers and make inappropriate contact with strangers e.g. sit on knee, hold hand, cuddle them
   • Disinhibited attachment most common in the late adopted Romanian group with over one-quarter (26.1%) showing strong disinhibited attachment behaviours
   • The behaviour pattern was extremely rare in UK adoptees (3.8%) and early adopted children (8.9%)

5. Conclusion

   • Rutter concluded that for some, the effects of living in an institution and not forming attachments within Bowlby’s critical period could be long term, particularly in late adoptees.