Emotion understanding in postinstitutionalized Eastern European children

Abstract

To examine the effects of early emotional neglect on children's affective development, we assessed children who had experienced institutionalized care prior to adoption into family environments. One task required children to identify photographs of facial expressions of emotion. A second task required children to match facial expressions to an emotional situation. Internationally adopted, postinstitutionalized children had difficulty identifying facial expressions of emotion. In addition, postinstitutionalized children had significant difficulty matching appropriate facial expressions to happy, sad, and fearful scenarios. However, postinstitutionalized children performed as well as comparison children when asked to identify and match angry facial expressions. These results are discussed in terms of the importance of emotional input early in life on later developmental organization.Over the last decade, the adoption of children across nations has increased substantially. In the United States alone, such adoptions now exceed 20,000 children per year (Immigration and Naturalization Service [INS], 2002). Today, approximately 85% of international adoptees have spent some or all of their lives in institutional, as opposed to family, care where the children have experienced combinations of physical and social deprivation (US State Department, 1999). Although the deprivation experienced by these children is often impossible to precisely quantify, it is apparent that these environments fall below the quality needed to sustain normal behavioral development, as evidenced by the rate at which children arrive in their adoptive homes with poor health, growth failure, and developmental delays (Johnson, 2000a;Johnson, Miller, Iverson, Thomas, Franchino, Dole, Kiernan, Georgieff, & Hostetter, 1992;Miller, 2000). Current estimates are that institutionalized infants and toddlers loose about 1 month of linear growth for every 3 months in institutional care, with behavioral development exhibiting similar dramatic reductions (Gunnar, 2001;Johnson, 2000b).Institutionally reared children have captured attention for decades. Early research on these children emphasized the deprivation of maternal care, although as Rutter (1981) rightly noted, not only maternal stimulation, but also many other types of stimulation needed for normal development is deficient in institutional environments. Thus, the study of these children addresses both basic science issues about the role of early experience on brain development and also applied issues about the kinds of interventions that are likely to support and foster optimal development for these children. Indeed, early studies revealed that postinstitutionalized (PI) children showed marked improvements when removed from orphanage settings and placed in family environments; nonetheless, persistent developmental differences in these children could be detected long after adoption, including deficits in emotional and social development (Fisher, Ames, Chisholm, & Savoie, 1997;Hodges & Tizard, 1989...

Disentangling the effects of cognitive development and linguistic expertise: A longitudinal study of the acquisition of English in internationally-adopted children

“…Institutional environments can have lasting effects on qualitative features of children's emotional development and social cognition (Fries & Pollak, 2004;Yagmurlu, Berument & Celimli, 2005;Camras, Perlman, Fries & Pollak, 2006). Presumably this experience might also alter the course of cognitive or linguistic development.…”

Identifying the Neural Correlates Underlying Social Pain: Implications for Developmental Processes

“…For example, it has been shown that the presence of abuse during childhood leads to very different psychological outcomes than does neglect or the absence of affection. Children who have been exposed to early abuse seem to show a heightened sensitivity to negative emotional cues that signify harm or aggression (such as angry faces) [Pollak & Kistler, 2002], whereas neglected children tend to show a different psychological profile characterized by avoiding social interactions altogether or showing indiscriminate friendliness towards all [Wismer Fries & Pollak, 2004]. Part of the reason for these different behavioral profiles may be due to the fact that these early experiences shape the sensitivity of separate neural systems, and thus may have different consequences for psychological function.…”

“…From these observations, Bowlby suggested that prolonged separation from a caregiver in early life was likely to lead to various forms of psychopathology in later life. Indeed, recent observations from Eastern European orphanages support this claim; orphans lacking early social ties do not develop normal social or emotional skills and have longlasting problems maintaining social relationships [Wismer Fries & Pollak, 2004].…”

Different Types of Childhood Adverse Experiences and Mood Disorders

“…Neglected children may have difficulty in discriminating emotional expression (Fries & Pollak, 2004) and show various attention and social deficits (Turgeon & Nolin, 2004). The lack of emotional interaction during the crucial early period of development can result in poor emotional regulation that may be part of a cascade of adverse neurobiological events rendering a child vulnerable to the effects of later adverse experiences and triggering a vicious cycle towards adult depression.…”