Institutionalisation is the behaviour patterns of
children who had been raised outside of a family
home in care.
Rutter (1998)
Procedure: Studied Romanian orphans who has been placed in orphanages aged 1-2 weeks old,
with minimal adult contact. Assessed a group of around 100 orphans at ages 4,6,11 then
reassessed 21 years later. 3 conditions used, adopted before 6 months, adopted between
6months and 2 years, and adopted between 2-4 years.
Findings: At first arrival, adoptees showed signs
of delayed intellectual development and severe
malnourishment. Mean IQ for those before 6
months was 102, 86 after 6 months and 77 for
those after 2 years.
In Romania in the 1990s the president of
the time made it a requirement for women
to have 5 children, leading to high intakes
in orphanages as people could not afford to
care for these children.
Effects:
Disinhibited attachment: An adaptation to
living in care with multiple carers.
Intellectual disability: Lower iq, those
adopted before 6 months however were able
to catch up with the control group.
Bucharest Early Intervention Project
Procedure: Zeanah et al (2005) assessed the attachment in 136
orphans between 12-31 months who had spent on average 90% of
their life in an institution. Measured using the strange situation.
Findings: Only 19% of the control
group was securely attached. 65%
found to have a disorganised
attachment, a type of insecure where
children display an inconsistent
pattern of behaviour.
Evaluation:
Strengths:
Real world application. Studying Romanian
orphans can improve understanding of
institutional care and how to prevent worse
effects.
Lack of confounding variables. Children from Romanian
orphanages have been placed there by loving parents so
lack of previous negative experience which could affect
it,
Weaknesses:
Lack of adult data. There will
be some time until we know
the long term effects.
Results may not be representative. Once
children were adopted they may not wish to
take part in the study.