Failure to form attachment- Privation

Failure to form attachment- Privation

1. Privation is the lack of something

   • Emotional privation is the lack of attachment or love in a child who has been able to form an attachment.
   • Physical privation refers to the lack of physical needs such as food and water
   • It occurs during times of neglection or during conflict or civil war
   • Privation is when there's never been an attachment formed in the first place
     • Whereas disruption is when there was already an attachment but it was disrupted and then the attacment was restored. E.g. John by Robertson and Robertson

2. Genie

   • Background
     • Discovered and rescued at the age of 13
     • She was kept tied to a potty by day and tied into a sleeping bag at night by her father who believed she was brain damaged
     • Regularly beaten when she tried to communicate
     • When rescued, she was fostered by a teacher and then by a psychologist studying her
   • Effects
     • Developmental dwarfism- 4 feet 6 inches tall
     • Learnt to control her bowels and walk more or less after being given some care.
     • She didn't learn normal language and by 18 she could only produce short sentences. She could hold a conversation for those who knew her well
     • She developed attachments to her carers- especially in early stages before the funding for research was withdrawn and she was returned to social services where she was cared for by a succession of foster parents

3. The Czech Twins

   • Background
     • Identical boys born in 1960
     • Lost their mother shortly after birth and were cared for in an institution for a year after being fostered by an aunt for a further 6 months.
     • Their father remarried and twins were reared by cruel stepmother who locked them in a dark cold closet and beat them regularly
   • Effects
     • Rescued at the age of 7. They were severely retarded and had no speech
     • After 2 years of intensive instituitional care a pair of caring and attentive sisters fostered the boys
     • At age of 14 they showed no social emotion
     • At the age of 20 they both showed above average intelligence and were working and experiencing successful romantic relationships.
     • Therefore effects of severe early privation were overcome by careful nurturing

4. Differences- How Czech twins recovered but Genie didnt

   • Czech twins had each other to form attachment
   • Czech twins recovered at 7 whereas Genie rescued at 13; easier to recover from 7 years of privation than 13 years
   • Genie was suspected to have brain damage- may have prevented her recovering.
   • Czech twins had better quality care and more consistent than Genie
   • Czech twins had more opportunities for later development as they had more intensive institutional care

5. Evaluation

   • Problems with both pieces of research
     • Genie hadn't been tested early on so its not clear whether she started off with problems. There's some evidence that her brain didn't function normally although it was never fully researched at the time
     • Genie found at later time than the Czech Twins which may account for the effects of her experiences.
     • Genie was abused again and this caused her condition to detoriate
     • Czech Twins had each to attach to so this is not a clear example of privation
     • Czech twins spent some time in an institution before returning to their family. May have laid some foundations for normal development in the instituitions
     • Czech Twins received above average care from the sisters. It's thought that the quality of care was the key reason for their improvement
     • Czech Twins were rescued at an early age. It seems the younger we can intervene in cases of privation , the better chances of success
   • Ethical issues
     • As the children are often seriously affected they may be unable to give their fully informed consent
     • Foster Parents or carer may feel under pressure from researchers to allow continued study of the children in their care
   • Strengths
     • The use of case studies provide researchers a richness of data into the short and long term effects of failure to form an attachment . This is beneficial compared to quantitative data as privation is a complex issue and couldn't be studied by numbers alone
       • Case studies have high ecological validity as they are real life examples . Therefore we can be confident that the results that are found are accurate representations of the effects of privation.
       • Case Studies can suggest new hypotheses for research . E.g. they have lead to further research into the language as Genie was unable to learn the normal language.
   • Weaknesses
     • Difficult to generalise as the findings are unique. This means that other people who suffer privation may not show the same effects or recovery
       • Impossible to replicate as it would be unethical to deny any child attachment. This makes it harder to make any firm conclusions as we aren't able to test for reliablility
       • Writing up reports of privation could be bias and they may only report findings from such studies that match what they expect to find. This is often the case in case studies as researchers become so involved in the research that they don't even realise they are being bias in reporting.