Age at Adoption from Institutional Care as a Window into the Lasting Effects of Early Experiences

Abstract

One of the major questions of human development is how early experience impacts the course of development years later. Children adopted from institutional care experience varying levels of deprivation in their early life followed by qualitatively better care in an adoptive home, providing a unique opportunity to study the lasting effects of early deprivation and its timing. The effects of age at adoption from institutional care are discussed for multiple domains of social and behavioral development within the context of several prominent developmental hypotheses about the effects of early deprivation (cumulative effects, experience-expectant developmental programming, and experience-adaptive developmental programming). Age at adoption effects are detected in a majority of studies, particularly when children experienced global deprivation and were assessed in adolescence. For most outcomes, institutionalization beyond a certain age is associated with a step-like increase in risk for lasting social and behavioral problems, with the step occurring at an earlier age for children who experienced more severe levels of deprivation. Findings are discussed in terms of their concordance and discordance with our current hypotheses, and speculative explanations for the findings are offered.

Examining the primary school experiences of intercountry adoptees : perspectives of adoptive parents and children

“…This study supports previous international research which argues that age at adoption and pre-adoption experience influence a child's post-adoption attachment, adjustment and ongoing development, and these children may need additional assistance at school (Gunnar et al, 2007;Julian, 2013;Rutter, 1998;Rutter, Colvert et al, 2007;Sharma, McGue, & Benson, 1996a;Verhulst, 2000). While some distinctions have been made between the long-term educational and behavioural outcomes for children reared in better quality orphanages in some Asian countries (Dalen, 2002;Tan et al, 2007Tan et al, , 2010, the majority of studies have focused predominantly on the adoption of children from significantly deprived institutions in Eastern Europe (Albers et al,.…”

“…Numerous studies have found that older age at adoption, and corresponding length of time spent in an institutional setting versus time in an adoptive family, makes a difference to children's long term developmental outcomes (Julian, 2013).…”

“…Furthermore, Julian (2013, p. 141) identified a "step-like increase in risk for lasting social and behavioural problems" depending on the severity and type of institutional deprivation. For example, more than six months spent in globally depriving institutions of Romania and more than 18 months spent in social-emotional deprived institutions in Russia made a significant difference (Julian, 2013). In contrast, children who moved from an institutional setting to a better quality foster care arrangement demonstrate improved developmental and behavioural outcomes (Smyke, Zeanah, Fox, Nelson, & Guthrie, 2010).…”

Early deprivation as a risk factor for narcissistic identity pathologies in adolescence with regard to international adoption

“…projection as defense mechanism, dual relationship). Selective coding was articulated around the research question in regard to narcissistic identity pathologies as an outcome of early trauma, due to severity of caregiving deprivation, firstly roughly estimated by age at adoption [19] and then by group. Key categories which could embed groups of categories were defined.…”

“…What is also clear is that length of preadoption time and severity of caregiving deprivation emerge as two predicting factors of delays in the development of neurological and age-level motor skills, and that the simple enrichment of the adopted child's environment following adoption proves insufficient to repair such damage beyond certain critical ages or sensitive periods [10,[15][16][17][18]. These sensitive periods and cutoff ages differ depending on the institution and country of origin according to the severity of deprivation to which the child has been exposed [19].…”