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

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

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

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).

Time 1 variables (1 year post adoption) Procedure: Time 1 variables (1 year post adoption) Denver Developmental Questionnaire 4 domains: personal-social, fine motor-adaptive, language, gross motor Background Variables: child’s 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

RO group had lower cognitive scores than CB & EA 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

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 children’s development positively related to HOME scores and negatively related to length of time in institution Limitations?

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.

Coordinated set of activities 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)

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