Orphans
Summary
How does one attempt to summarize the recent literature on institutionalized children? Most of the studies show, perhaps unsurprisingly, that children who have spent an extended period of time in orphanage display deficits in all areas of development when compared to any other group (i.e., early-adopted, within-country adopted, and/or home-reared children). Although this sounds like the same pessimistic picture that both Goldfarb and Spitz painted, when one examines the data beyond mere group differences, a different picture emerges. Ames (1997) extended the work with her sample by going beyond group differences and examining the data within her orphanage group. As reported earlier, orphanage children in Ames's sample displayed significantly more behavior problems, they had significantly lower IQs, more social problems, and they displayed significantly more insecure attachment patterns, particularly more atypical or extreme attachment patterns than children in the other groups. On each of these measures, however, there was substantial within-group variation. Not all of the orphanage children were experiencing all of these problems. This raises a risk and resiliency question. Why do some children recover from such extreme deprivation seemingly unscathed, whereas other children carry scars into their futures? Ames examined the correlates that were associated with particular problems, and whether it was the same orphanage children experiencing each of these problems. She defined four areas of serious problems: having an IQ of eight-five or lower, having an atypical insecure attachment pattern, having severe behavior problems, or continued presence of stereotyped behavior.
Ames then grouped her sample in terms of the number of serious problems and compared her groups in this way. She found only one earlyadopted child had as many as three serious problems, and none of her Canadian-born group had three serious problems, but 30 percent of the orphanage group had three or four of these serious problems. This third of the orphanage group accounted for 68 percent of all the individual serious problems that orphanage children had. Ames then reanalyzed all of the data excluding those orphanage children with three or four serious problems from the analyses. She found there were no longer group differences on behavior problems as assessed by the CBCL or insecure attachment patterns. Nevertheless, orphanage children still had significantly lower IQs than Canadian-born children.
This is a more positive picture than earlier work on institutionalization and speaks to the strength in young children of overcoming tremendous adversity. Fully two-thirds of orphanage children were doing well given their poor start. One-third of the children, even three years postadoption, were doing poorly.
Ames then examined factors that were associated with a child having three or more serious problems. She considered characteristics of the institution, child characteristics, and family characteristics. Although length of time in the orphanage was associated with more problems, no characteristics of the institution or the child were associated with a child having serious problems.
There were, however, family characteristics that were associated with children having more problems. One factor that seemed to predict whether a child would have serious problems was the number of Romanian children adopted. Families who adopted two children had more serious problems than families who only adopted one child. A number of other family characteristics were associated with children having serious problems and all of these appear to be tapping the resources available to a family. The higher the family income, the older the mother, and the higher the socioeconomic status (SES) of the family, the fewer problems they were experiencing with their child. A final—rather surprising—correlate of children who were experiencing many problems involved the parent who had traveled to Romania to adopt a child. Children who were selected by the father alone experienced more problems postadoption than children who had been selected by either the mother alone or both parents. Ames (1997) suggested that the parent who is going to be the parent providing most of the day-to-day caregiving should have been the parent to travel to Romania.
These correlates seem to suggest that resiliency is not something within a child. It develops as a result of the particular interactions a child experiences with his or her environment. Therefore, institutionalization represents a risk factor that initially sets a child on a less than optimal developmental pathway. Where a child ends up developmentally, however, will depend on what happens after the initial trauma.
Children's experience in orphanages clearly constitutes a risk factor for their optimal development. Given an optimal postorphanage environment with few stressors, however, orphanage children appear to do well and overcome early adversity. Institutionalization appears to contribute to less than optimal development only when coupled with other stressors (for example, low SES, high parenting stress). This is consistent with the suggestion that one risk factor in isolation does not lead to an increased probability for psychopathology. It is the combination of several risk factors working together that substantially increases the likelihood of future difficulty (Belsky, Rosenberger, and Crnic 1995; Rutter 1985).
Clearly, children who experience institutionalization and are subsequently adopted generally arrive in their adoptive homes in poor condition. Parents are dealing simultaneously with an array of problem areas, which requires an exceptionally high level of commitment from parents. The fact that many parents are successful in promoting optimal developmental outcomes in their children is truly a laudable achievement.
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KIM MACLEAN
Additional topics
Marriage and Family EncyclopediaPregnancy & ParenthoodOrphans - Early Literature On Institutionalization, Later Deprivation Studies, Intellectual Development, Behavior Problems, Social-emotional Development