4.1.3 Attachment - Romanian Orphan Studies

How can practical application be a strength of orphan studies? (AO3)

- A practical application to this research is that it led to improvements on the way infants are cared for in orphanages - Children's homes try and allocate key carers to specific children who play a central role in aiming to provide sensitive and responsive care to the infants - This gives the child a chance to develop normal attachments and avoid disinhibited attachments - It is especially important for orphans to develop a positive internal working model of attachments to enable them to be sensitive and caring parents themselves in the future

What is disinhibited attachment as an effect of institutionalisation?

- A typical effect of spending time in an institution - They are equally friendly and affectionate towards people they know well or who are strangers they have just met - This is highly unusual behaviour as normally children only in their 2nd year show signs of stranger anxiety - Rutter (2006) has explained disinhibited attachment as an adaption to living with multiple caregivers during the sensitive period for attachment formation - In poor quality institutions like those in Romania a child might have 50 carers none of whom they see enough to form secure attachment

How can the fact the Romanian orphans weren't typical provide a weakness to the findings? (AO3)

- Although much useful data about institutionalisation has come out of Romanian orphan studies it's possible that conditions were so bad that results can't be applied to understanding the impact of better quality institutional care of indeed any situation where children experience deprivation - For example, Romanian orphanages had particularly poor standards of care, especially when it came to forming a relationship with the children and extremely low levels of intellectual stimulation - This is a limitation of the Romanian orphan studies because the unusual situational variables mean the studies may after all lack generalisation

How can the children not being randomly allocated into groups be a limitation? (AO3)

- As the ERA study was a natural experiment the children weren't randomly allocated to children who were adopted before or after 6 months - This may be a problem as there may have been confounding variables as the more sociable and warm children may have been adopted first and those children may have fared better anyway within the institution and in later life, biasing the findings - Through random allocation would increase the internal validity of the study it is very unethical to randomly allocate some children too early vs. late adoption, and would be unlikely to be approved by the BPS

What is mental retardation as an effect of institutionalisation?

- In Rutter's study mot children showed signs of retardation when they arrived in Britain - However, most of those adopted before they were 6 months old caught up with the control group by age 4 - It appears that, like emotional development, damage to intellectual development as a result of institutionalisation can be recovered provided adoption takes place before the age of 6 months - the age at which attachment forms

What were the findings of Rutter's ERA?

- Initially half of the adoptees showed the signs of delayed intellectual development and the majority were severely undernourished - Aged 11 adopted children showed different rates of recovery which are related to their age of adoption - Mean IQ of the children adopted before 6 months was 102, compared to 86 for those adopted 6 months - 2 years and 77 for those adopted after 2 years - These differences remained the same until the age of 16 - Those children who adopted past the age of 6 months showed signs of disinhibited attachment - symptoms of this include attention seeking, clinginess and social behaviour directed indiscriminately towards all adults

What was the procedure for Rutters ERA (English and Romanian Adoptee) study?

- Michael Rutter et al in 2011 have followed a group of 165 Romanian orphans who had been adopted in Britain to test what extent good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions - Physical, cognitive and emotional development has been assessed at ages 4, 6, 11 and 15 years - A group of 52 British children who were adopted around the same time acted as the control group

How can the ethical issues prove a weakness of the findings? (AO3)

- One of the methodological issues for Rutter's ERA projects is that children weren't randomly assigned to conditions - The researchers didn't interfere with the adoption process which means that those children adopted early may have been the more sociable ones, a confounding variable - To control for such variables, another major investigation of fostering versus institutional care, did use random allocation - In the Bucharest Early Intervention projects, Romanian orphans were randomly allocated to institutional care or fostering - This is methodologically better as it removes the confounding variable of which children are chosen by parents but raises ethical issues

How can the real-life applications of the orphan studies be a supporting evidence? (AO3)

- Orphanage studies have enhances our understanding of the effects of institutionalisation - Such results have led to improvements in the way children are cared for in institutions (Langton 2006) - For example, orphanages and children's homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers of each childs and instead ensure that a much smaller number of people, perhaps only one or two people, play a central role for the child - This person is called a key worker and having a key worker means that children have the chance to develop normal attachments and help avoid disinhibited attachment - This shows that such research has been immensely valuable in practice terms

What is a background information for the Romanian orphan studies?

- Research on maternal deprivation as turned to orphan studies as a means of studying the effect of deprivation - A chance to look at the effects of institutional care and the consequent institutionalisation arose in Romania in 1990s - Former President Nicolai Ceaușescu required Romanian women to have 5 children - Many Romanian parents couldn't afford to keep their children and the children ended up in large orphanages in very poor conditions - After 1989 revolution many of the children were adopted some by British parents

How can the findings from Rutter's study are determinist be a issue? (AO3)

- Rutter's research suggests that children who fail to form an attachments before 6 months would go onto develop an attachment disorder - This isn't exactly the case as some children who had the most prolonged institutional care before being adopted showed no abnormal function by age 11 - This may be explained by individual differences as extreme emotional deprivation in the first 2 years of life may have devastating and irreversible consequences for some children but for others the effects may be minimal - This indicates that Rutter's explanation only partially explains the impacts of institutionalisation - It raises more questions than it answers by neglecting to account for individual differences and failing to examine the quality of care required to overcome the orphans developmental deficits

How can the long terms effects of institutionalisation aren't clear be an issue? (AO3)

- The adopted orphans have only been followed into their mid-teens, so may not show the true long term effects - The children who were institutions longer may yet catch up developmentally to their peers and conversely children who seemed unscathed by their experience may find themselves having emotional issues as adults - As a consequence to understand the full impact of institutionalisation and severe neglects, these individuals may need to be monitored well into adulthood - A difficult task as in most longitudinal studies attrition may be an issue, with many possibly choosing to put the past behind them

How can the high internal validity of the orphan studies be a strength? (AO3)

- The orphans were abandoned to the institution when they were born they would have not experienced any significant trauma that could be a confounding variable - This meant that it was possible to investigate the effects of institutionalisation on intellectual development and attachment type in isolation - This way Rutter was certain the type of care the children received directly impacted on their development - However, the results may lack external validity/generalisability as they only show the effects of severely neglectful institutions, and fail to understand the effects of better quality institutional care on development

How can the fact that the long term effects aren't yet known be a weakness of the findings? (AO3)

- The studies have now followed up fostered and adopted orphans into their mid-teens and found some lasting effects of early experience, in particular those who were adopted late - However, it is too soon to say with certainty whether children suffered short-term of long-term effects - It may be that the children who spent longer in institutions and currently lag behind in intellectual development or display attachment difficulties may still 'catch up' as adults - Equally early-adopted/fostered children who appear to have no issues now may experience emotional problems as adults

How has the fact that the Romanian orphans case study has fewer extraneous variables that other studies provide support for the findings? (AO3)

- There were many orphan studies before the Romanian orphans became available to study but often these studies involved children who had experienced trauma or loss before they were institutionalised - For example, they may have experienced neglect, abuse or bereavement - These children were often traumatised by their experiences and suffered bereavement - It was very hard to observe the effects of institutionalisation in isolation because the children were dealing with multiple factors which functioned as confounding participant variables - In the case of the Romanian orphans it has been possible to study institutionalisation without these confounding variables, which means the findings have increased internal validity

What were the findings of the Bucharest Early Intervention Project?

- They found that 74% of the control group came out as securely attached in the Strange Situation - However, only 19% of the institutional group were securely attached with 65% being classified with disorganised attachment - The description of disinhibited attachment applied to 44% of institutionalised children as opposed to less than 20% of the control

What was the procedure for the Bucharest Early Intervention Project?

- Zeanah et al in 2005 assessed attachment of 95 children aged 12-31 months who had spent most of their lives in institutional care (90% on average) - They were compared to a control group of 50 children who had never lived in an institution - Their attachment type was measured using the Strange Situation - In addition, carers were asked about unusual social behaviour including clingy, attention-seeking behaviour directed inappropriately at all adults (aka disinhibited attachment)

What is meant by institutionalisation?

A term for the effects of living in an institutional setting. The term 'institution' refers to a place like a hospital or an orphanage where children live for long, continuous periods of time. In such places there is often very little emotional care provided. In attachment research we are interested in the effects of institutionalisation care on children's attachment and subsequent development

What is meant by orphan studies?

These concern children placed in care because their parent can't look after them. An orphan is a child whose parents have either died or have abandoned them permanently