When the Romanian Orphans Grow Up: The Recent Report

What happens when children from severely-deprived institutional backgrounds are adopted into caring families? Adoption has been described as one of the most successful interventions, but how good a job does it do?

We are finding some answers to these questions bit by bit, as the English and Romanian Adoptees (ERA) Study continues to follow a group of over 300 children adopted from Romanian orphanages in the early 1990s. The ERA researchers are in the process of comparing the Romanian adoptees to non-adopted children as well as to adopted children who never had institutional care. This work is enormously time-consuming and complex, and involves repeated measurements and interviews at different ages, plus delays associated with analyzing, writing, and publishing the results of each phase of the investigation.

A recent presentation of the children’s characteristics up to age 15 has been published by Michael Rutter and co-authors as Deprivation-specific psycholkogical patterns: Effects of institutional deprivation (Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, Serial No. 295, Vol.75, No. 1, 2010). The 252 pages of this monograph are absolutely packed with information, some leading to conclusions, some not. I am going to try to pull out some points that may be of particular interest to readers.

An aspect of the monograph that will be of interest to many is the question raised in the title: whether there are psychological patterns that follow severe social and other deprivation in early life. The ERA investigated a group of characteristics that seemed more likely to occur in post-institutional children than in other adoptees. The following items were included:

1. Quasi-autism: A behavior pattern not identical with autism, but including rocking, self-injurious behavior like hair-pulling, unusual and exaggerated sensory responses, and tantrums in response to changes in routine, as reported in parent interviews (Gindis, B. [2008]. Institutional autism in children adopted internationally: Myth or reality? International Journal of Special Education, 23, 118-123).

2. Disinhibited attachment, as shown in unusual friendliness toward strangers and failure to show strong preferences for familiar people in threatening circumstance. The monograph describes disinhibited attachment as including “inappropriate approach to unfamiliar adults, a failure to check back with a caregiver in unfamiliar settings, and willingness to accompany a stranger and wander away from a familiar caregiver. It is often associated with a lack of appropriate physical boundaries, so that children may interact with strangers intrusively and even seek out physical contact… there is sometimes inappropriate affectionate behavior with strangers and undue physical closeness” ( Monograph, p. 58) .

3. Cognitive impairment, including problems with “mentalization” or the ability to understand what other people might believe or feel about a situation.

4. Inattention and overactivity similar to attention-hyperactivity disorders.

While by no means all children who had come from institutions displayed these problems, even those who had spent more than 6 months in a Romanian orphanage, the ERA group reported that over 90% of those who still showed the behaviors at age 15 had spent more than 6 months in severe deprivation. Those who persisted to age 15 with these problems had often improved (for example, become more likely to be helpful or comforting to others), but odd behaviors still occurred. Some children “annoyed other people but did not know why, and difficulties making or keeping friends were common… In a few cases, … inappropriate remarks included excessively outspoken sexualized use of language” ( Monograph, p. 86). Some children were reported as fascinated with collections, including those of “useless rubbish” like chocolate wrappers.

Can we generalize from the ERA children to other adoptees? While it’s useful for potential adoptive parents to have some idea of the types of problems they may see, it’s important to keep in mind some differences between the ERA group and many other adoptees. Members of the ERA group were aged 42 months or younger at the time of adoption, and most of them had gone to the institution shortly after birth. The Romanian orphanages were characterized by extremely severe deprivation, including confinement to cribs and bathing with water squirted from hoses, conditions unlike those in most other child-care institutions. Children with different histories may be quite different from the ERA group.

In addition to the possible effects of differences in background, the following facts are noted by the monograph: “A striking finding at all ages was the heterogeneity in outcome. Thus, even with the children who had the most prolonged experience of institutional care, there were some who at age 11 showed no indication of abnormal functioning on any of the domains we assessed. Conversely, there was a substantial proportion of children who showed impairments in multiple domains of functioning.” (p. 14). It would be a mistake for potential adoptive parents to assume that they can predict which outcome will belong to a given child.