The current article provides a review of adoption research since its inception as a field of study. Three historical trends in adoption research are identified: the first focusing on risk in adoption and identifying adoptee-nonadoptee differences in adjustment; the second examining the capacity of adopted children to recover from early adversity; and the third focusing on biological, psychosocial, and contextual factors and processes underlying variability in adopted children's adjustment. Suggestions for future areas of empirical investigation are offered, with an emphasis on the need to integrate research, policy, and practice.

Children exposed to institutional care often suffer from “structural neglect” which may include minimum physical resources, unfavorable and unstable staffing patterns, and social-emotionally inadequate caregiver-child interactions. This chapter is devoted to the analysis of the ill effects of early institutional experiences on resident children’s development. Delays in the important areas of physical, hormonal, cognitive, and emotional development are discussed. The evidence for and against the existence of a distinctive set of co-occurring developmental problems in institutionalized children is weighed and found to not yet convincingly demonstrate a “post-institutional syndrome”. Finally, shared and non-shared features of the institutional environment and specific genetic, temperamental, and physical characteristics of the individual child are examined that might make a crucial difference in whether early institutional rearing leaves irreversible scars.

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A rich and heterogeneous body of knowledge about adoption breakdown has accumulated in recent years. The goal of this article is to review the existing research literature on the topic. Method: A comprehensive review of journal articles, book chapters, and technical reports addressing the issue of adoption breakdown was conducted. Results: Terminological and methodological difficulties are discussed before the main findings about the incidence of adoption breakdown are presented. A detailed examination of the child, parent, and support and service characteristics associated with the breakdown experience follows. The review ends with the analysis of some policy and practice implications, as well as with suggestions about how to increase and improve the study of adoption breakdown. Discussion: Although research into adoption breakdown has achieved a considerable progress in recent years, improvements are still needed in both the basic research and the applied implications domains.

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Existing over many centuries, adoption has been challenged in recent years by evidence about practices that do not respond to the principles, ethics and laws under which it should be enacted. Written from a multidisciplinary and international perspective, this article outlines the place of adoption in the child protection system, as well as its core elements of permanence and stability. Recent demographic changes in adoption throughout the world are first examined. The negative consequences of children's exposure to early adversities and the post-adoption developmental trajectory of adopted people are also summarized. The focus of the argument is that adoption provides a legitimate model for the alternative care of children if undertaken within a rights and ethics framework that emphasizes children's best interests, as set out in international conventions and national laws. Implications for adoption policy and practice are presented.

Attachment theory and research are drawn upon in many applied settings, including family courts, but misunderstandings are widespread and sometimes result in misapplications. The aim of this consensus statement is, therefore, to enhance understanding, counter misinformation, and steer family-court utilisation of attachment theory in a supportive, evidence-based direction, especially with regard to child protection and child custody decision-making. The article is divided into two parts. In the first, we address problems related to the use of attachment theory and research in family courts, and discuss reasons for these problems. To this end, we examine family court applications of attachment theory in the current context of the best-interest-of-the-child standard, discuss misunderstandings regarding attachment theory, and identify fac

This chapter first presents a review of research on the development of adopted children, focusing on meta-analytic evidence and highlighting comparisons between adopted children with and without histories of early adversity. Some methodological issues arising from this literature are considered as well. Second, 7 longitudinal studies of adopted children's development are described, and the convergence of findings across the longitudinal studies and with the cross-sectionally based meta-analytic evidence is discussed. Third, the role of the adoptive family in supporting adopted children's development is explored.