Orphaned Children

1
Orphaned Children

• Morrison and Ellwood (2000)
• Studied the development of children in Romanian
  Orphanages
• Orphaned children have cognitive delays
• Orphanages less praise, reinforcement,
  development of new skills, adapting to needs
• Studies of Romanian orphanages children have
  delays in cognitive and social development
• Once adopted, they do improve, but still have
  delays due to unresponsive and unstimulating
  backgrounds

2

• Study Objectives
• Compare cognitive development of Romanian
  orphanage (RO) children who have been in adoptive
  homes for 3 years to non-adopted Canadian-born
  (CB) children.
• Cognitive delays not only due to background
• Genetics traits of parents who abandon children
• Nutrition malnutrition affects cognitive
  development
• Adoption parents may have lower expectations for
  adopted children

3

• Early Adopted (ED) group those adopted before 4
  months of age
• Similar types of parents (abandoned) control for
  genetic background
• Control for prenatal nutrition and the fact the
  they are also not genetically related to parents
• Examine how adopted home affects cognitive
  development
• Early home environment is related to cognitive
  development

4
RO spent at least 8 months in orphanage (range 8
to 53), had been in adoptive home median age of
39 months (26-57) EA adopted before 4 months of
age, had been in adoptive homes for a median age
of 51 months (49-57).
5

• Procedure
• Time 1 variables (1 year post adoption)
• Denver Developmental Questionnaire
• 4 domains personal-social, fine motor-adaptive,
  language, gross motor
• Background Variables childs family,
  institutional factors, health, developmental
  history
• Time 2 variables (3 years post adoption)
• IQ test
• Home Observation assess quality of stimulation
  in home and support available to a child

6

• Results
• RO group had lower cognitive scores than CB EA
• EA group was in between RO and CB
• Benefits of early adoption, but other
  environmental and genetic factors still play a
  role
• In previous study, at 11 months post-adoption,
  institutional variables were highly related to
  developmental status of RO children.
• But at 3 years post-adoption most institutional
  variables were no longer related to development
• only length of time in institution was related

7

• Results
• 3 groups did not differ on SES and most parent
  characteristics
• But RO children had lower HOME scores than CB
  children
• Children with better HOME scores had higher IQ
  scores, even after controlling for group status
• RO childrens development positively related to
  HOME scores and negatively related to length of
  time in institution
• Limitations?

8

• Sparling et al. (2005)
• Effects of intervention on development of
  children in Romanian orphanage
• Study 1 non random assignment of children to
  experimental and control group.
• Study 2 random assignment
• Participants resided in Romanian orphanage from
  birth to 3 years
• Assessed on pre- and post-test in both studies
  and also at mid point in study 1.

9
(No Transcript)
10

• Intervention
• Coordinated set of activities
• Staff training
• Caregiver/intervention protocol enriched
  caregiving, extra stimulation, engaged children
  in educational events, individual curriculum
• Educational games
• Supervision
• Measures
• Denver Developmental test was translated into
  Romanian and administered pre- and
  post-intervention (midpoint in study 1)

11
(No Transcript)
12
(No Transcript)
13
(No Transcript)
14
(No Transcript)
15
(No Transcript)
16

• Conclusions
• Importance of the behavior of caregivers
• Intervention must be well-implemented
• Intervention can prevent children from falling
  further behind peers
• Beneficial effects of intervention likely
  underestimated in this study
• Avoid long stays in orphanage
• Add resources needed for intervention