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. 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

6. 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

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 children’s 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.

10. 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)

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