Intercountry adoptees run a higher risk of having severe mental health problems in adulthood than nonadoptees of the same age. The risk of later malfunctioning differs for different disorders and different groups of adoptees.

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.

A B S T R AC TWe examined the perceptions of adoption and related issues in 68 families with internationally adopted children in Spain (48 transracial and 20 same-race adoptions). The adopted children, between the ages of 8 and 12 years, and their parents answered questions about the children's thoughts and feelings about adoption. Descriptive data and scores on four scales -family, adoption, birth culture identity and discrimination -were obtained. Compared with same-race adoptees, transracial adoptees scored significantly higher on birth culture identity and perceived discrimination. High levels of convergence between the children's and parents' viewpoints on the experiences of adoption and related issues were found. Nevertheless, the adopted children scored higher than their parents on birth culture identity, suggesting that at this age adoptive parents may underestimate their children's connection to their cultural origins. In contrast, the samerace adoptees scored significantly lower on perceived discrimination than their mothers. We conclude that at this age adoptive parents should acknowledge their adopted child's daily-life experiences regarding cultural identity with the birth country and discrimination.

This study examines international adoptees and factors associated with searching for birth parents. A total of 1,417 international adoptees in The Netherlands, aged 24 to 30 years, were divided into 4 groups: uninterested nonsearchers, interested nonsearchers, searchers, and reunited searchers. In total, 32% of adoptees had searched. Although the majority of searchers were well-adjusted, they had more problems--mainly internalizing problems--than uninterested nonsearchers. These problems, however, were not caused by the search itself. It is concluded that searching is the product of natural curiosity influenced by external factors such as the divorce of adoptive parents and the options for searching.

Using data from a large adoption and general population cohort, we compared the social functioning of 24- to 30-year-old intercountry adoptees with that of same-aged nonadoptees in The Netherlands. Adoptees, compared to nonadoptees, were less likely to have intimate relationships, to live with a partner, and to be married. However, adoptees were not more impaired in their social contacts than nonadoptees. The educational and professional attainment of adoptees was at par with that of the general population. Adopted males showed somewhat less favorable outcomes than adopted females.