CANADIAN ADOPTION RESEARCH
SUMMARIES
Chisholm, Kim. (1998)
"A Three Year Follow-up of Attachment and Indiscriminate Friendliness
in Children Adopted from Romanian Orphanages"
Child
Development. Vol 69, Number 4, p1092-1106.
The study,
on which this article is based, explored attachment and indiscriminately
friendly behaviour in forty-six children who had spent at least eight
months in Romanian orphanages before being adopted into Canadian families.
The average age of these children upon adoption was nineteen months.
Findings were compared with two groups, one consisting of forty-six
Canadian born children who were not adopted and never institutionalized,
and thirty children who were adopted from Romania by Canadian families
before the age of four months (early adoptees). At the time of this
study, all children had been with their adoptive families at least
twenty six months.
The Canadian
born and early adoptee group were matched in sex and age (within one
month) with the children with greater institutional experience.
The present
study's findings are compared to a previous study of the same families
conducted by Chisholm et al in 1995. The author notes that no age
and gender differences were observed on any of the measures, therefore
all analyses were done without regard to age and gender.
Chisholm
found that the children who were institutionalized for eight months
or more, displayed significantly more insecure attachment patterns
than did both the Canadian born group and the early adoptees. No differences
were found between the Canadian born children and early adoptees in
regards to attachment patterns. Chisholm hypothesizes that because
the early adoptee children were adopted before they were four months
old, there was no reason to expect that the development of attachment
in this group would differ from children in the Canadian born group
as these children had not experienced prolonged neglect and had been
adopted before the time one would expect a typical attachment relationship
to develop.
Families
with children with greater institutional experience and who were also
insecure, had considerably lower socio-economic backgrounds and reported
higher levels of parenting stress than secure RO children and the
CB and EA groups. These children displayed significantly lower IQ
scores than secure children with the same amount of institutional
experience. These children also exhibited more atypical attachment
patterns than Canadian born children and early adoptees.
However,
orphanage children scored significantly higher on a parent report
measure of attachment security during the present study, than they
had during the initial one. Chisholm suggests that this is evidence
that children who are exposed to poor institutional conditions are
able to form attachment relationships. The current study revealed
that on the parent report measure of attachment security RO children
no longer scored differently than CB or EA children. However, on the
basis of the behavioural measure of attachment it was clearly the
case that RO children displayed more insecure attachment patterns
than children in the other groups.
Early
adoptees displayed significantly less indiscriminate friendliness
during the present study than they had initially. They no longer differed
from Canadian born children on measures of indiscriminate friendliness.
Children with greater institutional experience displayed significantly
more indiscriminately friendly behaviour than the other two groups
during both the initial and present study. These children also scored
higher on the more extreme and atypical behaviours in both studies.
These behaviours included wandering without distress, and being willing
to go home with a stranger. This behaviour generally did not decrease
during the first two to four years in their adoptive homes.
Chisholm
notes that indiscriminate friendliness may serve as an adaptive function
in an orphanage, where resources are extremely limited. Such behaviours
may also reflect a need for stimulation.
This
study suggests that parents who intend to adopt internationally need
to be concerned about their children's social and emotional development
as well as developmental delays and behavioural concerns. The findings
demonstrate the seriousness of the potential outcomes of prolonged
institutionalization. Significantly more children adopted after eight
months of institutional care than Canadian born or early adoptees,
displayed atypical attachment patterns. The author states that some
researchers have suggested that such patterns are risk factors in
the development of psychopathology. Such patterns are rare in normative
samples of children and are more often found in clinical samples of
maltreated infants and children.
The author
notes early institutional experience had an impact on security of
attachment only when coupled with other stressors. In families where
difficult child behaviours were combined with parents who were experiencing
stress, children developed insecure attachments. Chisholm believes
that this suggests that one risk factor in isolation does not lead
to an increased probability of risk for psychopathology. Rather it
is the combination of several risk factors working together that substantially
increases the likelihood of future difficulty.
_____________________________________
Kim Chisholm
is affiliated with the Department of Psychology at Saint Francis Xavier
University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
Full
text available at:
University
of British Columbia*, (604) 822-2274
University
of Calgary*, (403) 220-5967
McGill
University*, (514) 398-4732
University
of New Brunswick, (506) 648-5705
University
of Ottawa, (613) 562-5210
University
of Regina*, (306) 585-4290
University
of Toronto, (905) 828-3881
*available
online to registered users.
This
summary was prepared in 2003 by Inter-country Adoption Services (www.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/hrib/sdd-dds/cfc/content/interAdopt.shtml)
at the federal Department of Social Development.
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