Cross-Cultural Adaptation of Internationally Adopted Chinese Children

Abstract

Adaptation of internationally adopted children to another culture and language has not been studied extensively. This study followed four infant girls from China during the 1st year postadoption, measuring vocabulary, gestural, social, communication, and symbolic behavior development each month. The children were also tested at 2 and 3 years postadoption. Results indicated that each child demonstrated variability in prelinguistic communication and symbolic behaviors and demonstrated a significant drop in communication and symbolic behavior scores during the 6th, 7th, or 8th month postadoption. Also, receptive English vocabulary developed early and expressive vocabulary developed later during the first 12 months postadoption, and it remains difficult to predict if a child will catch up in communication development with non-adopted peers during the 2nd or 3rd year postadoption. These data will help guide clinical assessment decisions for internationally adopted children.

Communication patterns between internationally adopted children and their mothers: Implications for language development

“…In these respects, and contrary to our expectations, the IA children's ability to acquire early communication-related skills was not delayed significantly when compared to the CTL children. These results are consistent with those of Hwa-Froelich and Matsuoh (2008), who found that most of their sample, although quite small, scored within the normal range with respect to communication, social, and symbolic behaviors 6 months postadoption. In contrast, Glennen (2005) found that 50% of her sample of adoptees from Eastern Europe would qualify for early intervention based on their low scores on the CSBS-DP.…”

“…These results suggest that children adopted from China can develop prelinguistic communicative abilities in their new language quite rapidly. However, as Hwa-Froelich and Matsuoh (2008) note, the sample size was small and some children had siblings whereas others did not, which might have influenced their results.…”

“…She also found that the prelinguistic language abilities of these newly adopted children were good predictors of their later language outcomes at 24 months. Hwa-Froelich and Matsuoh (2008) assessed the vocabulary, gestural, social, communicative, and symbolic behavior of four girls adopted from China when they were between 12 and 36 months of age. They found that, 6 months postadoption, three of the children scored in the average range on the communication, social, and symbolic behavior scales of the CSBS-DP when compared to a group of nonadopted English-speaking children as well as when compared to children adopted from Eastern Europe.…”

Language abilities of internationally adopted children from China during the early school years: Evidence for early age effects?

“…All of the adopted children in the present study had been in orphanages at the time of adoption, according to parent reports. Although Chinese orphanages often provided suboptimal care for abandoned children in the past, evidence shows that the situation has improved (e.g., Hwa-Froelich & Matsuoh, 2008;Johnson et al, 1998). Accordingly, IA children from China are healthier and thus less prone to exhibit language difficulties that are associated with early health problems in comparison to children adopted from other countries (e.g., Cohen, Lojkasek, Zadeh, Pugliese, & Kiefer, 2008;Roberts, Krakow & Pollock, 2003).…”

Familia, escuela y adopción internacional. La inclusión educativa

“…Algunos factores que pueden afectar a este proceso son: la exposición al idioma de nacimiento (Hwa-Froelich y Matsuoh, 2008;Schoenbrodt et al, 2007), el tiempo de institucionalización (O'Connor, Rutter, Beckett, Keaveney, Kreppner y The English and Romanian Adoptees Study Team, 2000; Pearlmutter, Ryan, Johnson y Groza, 2008), la edad de adopción (Beverly et al, 2008;Dalen, 2001;Pearlmutter et al, 2008), condiciones previas a la adopción (Ladage, 2009) y la estimulación… Junto a ello, es importante resaltar que existe una cierta discrepancia entre las exigencias lingüísticas cotidianas y el lenguaje escolar. Los estudios no muestran diferencias entre adoptados y no-adoptados en cuanto a nivel de lenguaje cotidiano (Dalen, 1995(Dalen, , 2001Dalen & Rygvold, 1999).…”