Privation

1
Privation
www.psychlotron.org.uk

• What are the effects?
• Can the effects be reversed?
• Is there a critical period for the development of
  some abilities?
• Sociability
• Language

2
Privation
www.psychlotron.org.uk

• Hodges Tizard (1989)
• Social and emotional effects of privation through
  institutionalisation
• Key questions were about reversibility of effects

3
Privation
www.psychlotron.org.uk

• Hodges Tizard (1989)
• Compared institutionalised children with a
  control sample
• 65 children placed in care before 4 months
  controls raised at home
• Longitudinal study (16 years)
• Measures of social emotional competence at 4, 8
  16 years

4
Privation
www.psychlotron.org.uk
5
Privation
www.psychlotron.org.uk

• Mixed evidence for reversibility
• Adopted group developed apparently normal
  attachments
• Restored group had poor attachments and often
  presented behavioural problems
• Both groups had problems outside the family
• Poorer peer relationships than controls
• Attention seeking from adults

6
Privation
www.psychlotron.org.uk

• Curtiss (1989) Genie
• Extreme privation abuse
• Intense rehabilitative effort
• Limited success some attachments, some language
• Many problems
• Possibly not developmentally normal
• Questions about rehabilitation techniques

7
Privation
www.psychlotron.org.uk

• Koluchova (1976) Czech twins
• Locked in cellar until 7yrs, beaten
• No language, gestural communication, severe
  developmental delay
• Adopted at 9yrs, developmentally normal by 14 yrs
• Some problems
• Twins had opportunity to attach to each other
  possible protective effect

8
Privation
www.psychlotron.org.uk

• Freud Dann (1951)
• Child survivors of Nazi death camps
• Hostile to adults, limited language
• Adopted at 6yrs, formed attachments to carers
  eventually
• Emotional problems (e.g. depression) persisted

9
Privation - conclusions
www.psychlotron.org.uk

• Effects of privation are more reversible than
  Bowlby believed
• The longer the period of privation the harder to
  reverse the effects
• Loving relationships high quality care are
  necessary to reverse privation effects

10
Privation - conclusions
www.psychlotron.org.uk

• Research studies in this area suffer from many
  problems including
• Difficulty generalising from single cases or
  small samples
• Difficulty separating effects of privation,
  abuse, malnutrition, other trauma or congenital
  abnormality