Can be caused by extreme neglect or being raised in an institution (orphanage)
Genie case study - Curtiss (1977)
Found age 13 and had been kept tied to a potty chair for most of her life.
She had been punished for making noise. She was very small for her age
and displayed unusual physical behaviours. Described by Curtiss as
'socialised, primitive and hardly human'.
Initially showed good progress but
inconsistent care and punishment
in a foster home led to further
traumatisation
She lost the language and emotional
skills she had developed. Her condition
today is unknown.
Bowlby would suggest that Genie was the victim of Maternal
Deprivation, which has caused the traumatic side effects
(ADDIDDAS). However her father maintained she was brain
damaged at birth, which could explain her failure to develop
normally.
Czech twins case study - Koluchova (1976)
Identical twins whose mother died at birth. They were raised in a
children's home and then later by their father and stepmother. They
were kept in a small cellar and discovered at age 7. They could hardly
speak and had developed rickets.
They were adopted by
two sisters and received
two years of intensive therapies
They showed no long term ill
effects, and are both married with
successful careers
It can be argued that the twins did not truly experience
privation as they were able to make an attachment to
each and therefore instead experienced severe deprivation.
They were also discovered earlier than
Genie which make explain why they
recovered more successfully.
Bowlby claimed that "a bad home is better than a good institution
because of the poor psychological care children receive in such places"