Describe the effects of institutionalisation. Refer to Romanian orphan studies in your answer [6]
- Rutter et al. found in his study that institutionalisation has a very damaging effect on children’s cognitive, physical and emotional development based on his research into Romanian orphans.
- Rutter et al. found that due to the fact institutions involve the children having multiple carers, it is nearly impossible for them to form a secure relationship with one caregiver. This results in disinhibited attachment where children are overfriendly and behave indiscriminately between people they know and people they don’t know. This causes them to be very attention-seeking and clingy and also to act inappropriately towards strangers.
- Institutionalisation can also have an effect on intellectual development because he also found orphanages provided the children with such little mental and cognitive stimulation that that it caused them to display signs of mental retardation and abnormally low IQs, with those which were adopted after 2 years having a mean IQ of 77.
- Rutter concluded that the longer children are institutionalised for, the more damaging this has on their development. For example, those of which were adopted before 6 months rarely showed signs of disinhibited attachment and had an average IQ of 102.
- However, those adopted after 6 months, the IQ fell to 86 and they showed high levels of disinhibited attachment and those adopted after 2 years had an abnormally low IQ average of 77 and showed high levels of disinhibited attachment. This concluded that the long-term effects of institutionalisation are less severe provided you are adopted as earliest as possible.
- Another study by Zeanah et al. suggested that institutionalisation can cause disorganised attachment as he found that only 19% of Romanian orphans were securely attached and 65% were classified with disorganised attachment using the strange situation.
