Hostname: page-component-55f67697df-zpzq9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-08T20:48:25.280Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Postadoption parenting and socioemotional development in postinstitutionalized children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2012

Melissa C. Garvin ,
Amanda R. Tarullo ,
Mark Van Ryzin  and
Megan R. Gunnar
Melissa C. Garvin*
Affiliation:
Sonoma State University
Amanda R. Tarullo
Affiliation:
Boston University
Mark Van Ryzin
Affiliation:
Oregon Social Learning Center
Megan R. Gunnar
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Melissa Garvin, Psychology Department, Sonoma State University, 1801 East Cotati Avenue, Rohnert Park, CA 94928; E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Children adopted from institutions (e.g., orphanages) overseas are at increased risk of disturbances in social relationships and social understanding. Not all postinstitutionalized children exhibit these problems, although factors like the severity of deprivation and duration of deprivation increase their risk. To date, few studies have examined whether postadoption parenting might moderate the impact of early adverse care. Three groups were studied: postinstitutionalized and foster care children both adopted internationally and nonadopted children reared in their families of origin. The Emotional Availability (EA) Scales were assessed at 18 months in parent–child dyads. Parent emotional availability was found to predict two aspects of social functioning shown in previous studies to be impaired in postinstitutionalized children. Specifically, EA positively correlated with emotion understanding at 36 months; in interaction with initiation of joint attention at 18 months and group, it predicted indiscriminate friendliness as scored from a parent attachment interview at 30 months. Among the postinstitutionalized children but not among the children in other groups, higher EA scores reduced the negative association between initiation of joint attention and indiscriminate friendliness, thus suggesting that parenting quality may moderate the effects of early institutional deprivation.

Type
Special Section Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , February 2012 , pp. 35 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., text revision). Washington, DC: Author.Google Scholar
Ames, E. W., & Chisholm, K. (2001). Social and emotional development in children adopted from institutions. In Bailey, D. B., Bruner, J. T., Symons, F. J., & Lichtman, J. W. (Eds.), Critical thinking about critical periods (pp. 129–148). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.Google Scholar
Biringen, Z. (1998). Emotional Availability Scales (3rd ed.). Unpublished manuscript, Colorado State University, Denver.Google Scholar
Biringen, Z., & Robinson, J. (1991). Emotional availability in mother–child interactions: A reconceptualization for research. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 61, 258–271.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bornstein, M. H., Gini, M., Putnick, D. L., Haynes, M., Painter, K. M., & Suwalsky, J. T. D. (2006). Short-term reliability and continuity of emotional availability in mother–child dyads across contexts of development. Infancy, 10, 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bornstein, M. H., Gini, M., Suwalsky, J. T. D., Putnick, D. L., & Haynes, O. M. (2006). Emotional availability in mother–child dyads: Short-term stability and continuity from variable-centered and person-centered perspectives. Merrill–Palmer Quarterly, 52, 547–571.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowlby, J. (1982). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. New York: Basic Books. (Original work published 1969)Google Scholar
Bowlby, J. (1973). Attachment and loss: Vol. 2. Separation. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and loss: Vol. 3. Loss. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Bruce, J., Kroupina, M., Parker, S., & Gunnar, M. R. (2000). The relationships between cortisol patterns, growth retardation, and developmental delays in post-institutionalized children. Paper presented at the International Conference on Infant Studies, Brighton, England.Google Scholar
Bruce, J., Tarullo, A. R., & Gunnar, M. R. (2009). Disinhibited social behavior among internationally adopted children. Development and Psychopathology, 21, 157–171.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Castle, J., Beckett, C., Rutter, M., & Sonuga-Barke, E. J. (2010). VIII. Postadoption environmental features. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 75, 167–186.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chisholm, K. (1998). A three year follow-up of attachment and indiscriminate friendliness in children adopted from Romanian orphanages. Child Development, 69, 1092–1106.Google ScholarPubMed
Cicchetti, D. (2003). Experiments of nature: Contributions to developmental theory [Editorial]. Development and Psychopathology, 15, 833–835.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cicchetti, D., & Toth, S. L. (2009). The past achievements and future promises of developmental psychopathology: The coming of age of a discipline. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 50, 16–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Claussen, A. H., Mundy, P. C., Mallik, S. A., & Willoughby, J. C. (2002). Joint attention and disorganized attachment status in infants at risk. Development and Psychopathology, 14, 279–291.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Colvert, E., Rutter, M., Kreppner, J., Beckett, C., Castle, J., Groothues, C., et al. (2008). Do theory of mind and executive function deficits underlie the adverse outcomes associated with profound early deprivation?: Findings from the English and Romanian adoptees study. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 36, 1057–1068.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cook, J. C., Schoppe-Sullivan, S. J., Buckley, C. K., & Davis, E. F. (2009). Are some children more difficult to coparent? Children's negative emotionality and coparenting relationship quality. Journal of Family Psychology, 23, 606–610.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croft, C., O'Connor, T. G., Keaveney, L., Groothues, C., Rutter, M., & The ERA Study Team. (2001). Longitudinal change in parenting associated with developmental delay and catch-up. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 649–659.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Denham, S. A. (1986). Social cognition, prosocial behavior, and emotion in preschoolers: Contextual validation. Child Development, 57, 194–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Rosnay, M., & Harris, P. (2002). Individual differences in children's understanding of emotion: The roles of attachment and language. Attachment and Human Development, 4, 39–54.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Easterbrooks, A., & Biringen, Z. (2000). Guest editors' introduction to the special issue: Mapping the terrain of emotional availability and attachment. Attachment and Human Development, 2, 123–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ereky-Stevens, K. (2008). Associations between mothers' sensitivity to their infants' internal states and children's later understanding of mind and emotion. Infant and Child Development, 17, 527–543.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Floyd, F. J., & Phillippe, K. A. (1993). Parental interactions with children with and without mental retardation: Behavior management, coerciveness, and positive exchange. American Journal of Mental Retardation, 97, 673–684.Google ScholarPubMed
Fries, A. B., & Pollak, S. D. (2004). Emotion understanding in postinstitutionalized Eastern European children. Development and Psychopathology, 16, 355–369.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fries, A. B., Ziegler, T. E., Kurian, J. R., Jacoris, S., & Pollak, S. D. (2005). Early experience in humans is associated with changes in neuropeptides critical for regulating social behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102, 17237–17240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gunnar, M. R. (2001). Effects of early deprivation: Findings from orphanage-reared infants and children. In Nelson, C. A. & Luciana, M. (Eds.), Handbook of developmental cognitive neuroscience (pp. 617–629). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Gunnar, M. R., & van Dulmen, M. (2007). Behavior problems in post-institutionalized internationally adopted children. Development and Psychopathology, 19, 129–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hane, A., & Fox, N. (2006). Ordinary variations in maternal caregiving influence human infants' stress reactivity. Psychological Science, 17, 550–556.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hawk, B., & McCall, R. B. (2010). CBCL behavior problems of post-institutionalized international adoptees. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 13, 199–211.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hodges, J., & Tizard, B. (1989). Social and family relationships of ex-institutional adolescents. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 30, 53–75.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Juffer, F., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2005). Behavior problems and mental health referrals of international adoptees: A meta-analysis. Journal of the American Medical Association, 293, 2501–2515.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kadlec, M. B., & Cermak, S. A. (2002). Activity level, organization, and social–emotional behaviors in post-institutionalized children. Adoption Quarterly, 6, 43–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kertes, D. A., Donzella, B., Talge, N. M., Garvin, M. C., Van Ryzin, M. J., & Gunnar, M. R. (2009). Inhibited temperament and parent emotional availability differentially predict young children's cortisol responses to novel social and nonsocial events. Developmental Psychobiology, 51, 521–532.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koren-Karie, N., Oppenheim, D., Dolev, S., & Yirmiya, N. (2009). Mothers of securely attached children with autism spectrum disorder are more sensitive than mothers of insecurely attached children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 50, 643–650.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kreppner, J., Kumsta, R., Rutter, M., Beckett, C., Castle, J., Stevens, S., et al. (2010). IV. Developmental course of deprivation-specific psychological patterns: Early manifestations, persistence to age 15, and clinical features. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child, 75, 79–101.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lim, M. M., & Young, L. J. (2006). Neuropeptidic regulation of affiliative behavior and social bonding in animals. Hormones and Behavior, 50, 506–517.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Loman, M. M., Wiik, K. L., Frenn, K. A., Pollak, S. D., & Gunnar, M. R. (2009). Post-institutionalized children's development: Growth, cognitive, and language outcomes. Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 30, 426–434.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLaughlin, K. A., Fox, N. A., Zeanah, C. H., Sheridan, M. A., Marshall, P., & Nelson, C. A. (2010). Delayed maturation in brain electrical activity partially explains the association between early environmental deprivation and symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Biological Psychiatry, 68, 329–336.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moulson, M. C., Fox, N. A., Zeanah, C. H., & Nelson, C. A. (2009). Early adverse experiences and the neurobiology of facial emotion processing. Developmental Psychology, 45, 17–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mundy, P., Delgado, C., Hogan, A., & Doehring, P. (2003). A manual for the abridged early social communication scales (ESCS). Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami.Google Scholar
Mundy, P., Sullivan, L., & Mastergeorge, A. M. (2009). A parallel and distributed-processing model of joint attention, social cognition and autism. Autism Research, 2, 2–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
O'Connor, T. G., Bredenkamp, D., Rutter, M., & The ERA Study Team (1999). Attachment disturbances and disorders in children exposed to early severe deprivation. Infant Mental Health Journal, 20, 10–29.3.0.CO;2-S>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Connor, T. G., Marvin, R. S., Rutter, M., Olrick, J. T., Britner, P. A., & The ERA Study Team (2003). Child–parent attachment following early institutional deprivation. Development and Psychopathology, 15, 19–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
O'Connor, T. G., Rutter, M., & The ERA Study Team (2000). Attachment disorder behavior following early severe deprivation: Extension and longitudinal follow-up. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 39, 703–712.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
O'Connor, T. G., & Zeanah, C. H. (2003). Attachment disorders: Assessment strategies and treatment approaches. Attachment & Human Development, 5, 223–244.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pears, K. C., & Fisher, P. (2005). Emotion understanding and theory of mind among maltreated children in foster care: Evidence of deficits. Development and Psychopathology, 17, 47–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pollak, S., Cicchetti, D., Hornung, K., & Reed, A. (2000). Recognizing emotion in faces: Developmental effects of child abuse and neglect. Developmental Psychology, 36, 679–688.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Raikes, H. A., & Thompson, R. A. (2006). Family emotional climate, attachment security and young children's emotion knowledge in a high risk sample. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 24, 89–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raikes, H. A., & Thompson, R. A. (2008). Conversations about emotions in high-risk dyads. Attachment and Human Development, 10, 359–377.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rogosch, F. A., Cicchetti, D., Shields, A., & Toth, S. L. (1995). Parenting dysfunction in child maltreatment. In Bornstein, M. (Ed.), Handbook of parenting (Vol. 4, pp. 127–159). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Roy, P., Rutter, M., & Pickles, A. (2004). Institutional care: Associations between overactivity and lack of selectivity in social relationships. Journal of Psychology and Psychiatry, 45, 866–873.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rubin, D. L. (1976). Inference and missing data. Biometrika, 63, 581–592.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rutter, M. L., Kreppner, J. M., & O'Connor, T. G. (2001). Specificity and heterogeneity in children's responses to profound institutional privation. British Journal of Psychiatry, 179, 97–103.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rutter, M. L., & Sroufe, L. A. (2000). Developmental psychopathology: Concepts and challenges. Development and Psychopathology, 12, 265–296.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
SAS. (2002–2003). The MI procedure. Help and documentation. Cary, NC: SAS.Google Scholar
Schafer, J. L., & Graham, J. W. (2002). Missing data: Our view of the state of the art. Psychological Methods, 7, 147–177.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schechter, D. S., Willheim, E., Hinojosa, C., Scholfield-Kleinman, K., Turner, J. B., McCraw, J., et al. (2010). Subjective and objective measures of parent–child relationship dysfunction, child separation distress, and joint attention. Psychiatry, 73, 130–144.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smyke, A. T., Dumitrescu, A., & Zeanah, C. H. (2002). Attachment disturbances in young children. I: The continuum of caretaking casualty. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 41, 972–982.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smyke, A. T., Koga, S. F., Johnson, D. E., Fox, N. A., Marshall, P. J., Nelson, C. A., et al. (2007). The caregiving context in institution-reared and family-reared infants and toddlers in Romania. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48, 210–218.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smyke, A. T., Zeanah, C. H., Fox, N. A., Nelson, C. A., & Guthrie, D. (2010). Placement in foster care enhances quality of attachment among young institutionalized children. Child Development, 81, 212–223.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stams, G. J. M., Juffer, F., Rispens, J., & Hoksbergen, R. A. C. (2000). The development and adjustment of 7-year-old children adopted in infancy. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 41, 1025–1037.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Steele, H., Steele, M., Croft, C., & Fonagy, P. (1999). Infant–mother attachment at one year predicts children's understanding of mixed emotions at six years. Social Development, 8, 161–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Streiner, D. L. (2002). The case of the missing data: Methods of dealing with dropouts and other research vagrancies. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 47, 68–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarullo, A. R. (2007). Neurobiological development and social communication in the wake of early social deprivation: Electrophysiological activity, joint attention, and language in post-institutionalized toddlers. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.Google Scholar
Tarullo, A. R., Bruce, J., & Gunnar, M. R. (2007). False belief and emotion understanding in post-institutionalized children. Social Development, 16, 57–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarullo, A. R., Garvin, M. C., & Gunnar, M. R. (2011). Atypical EEG power correlates with indiscriminately friendly behavior in internationally adopted children. Developmental Psychology, 47, 417–431.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
The St. Petersburg–USA Orphanage Research Team. (2005). Characteristics of children, caregivers, and orphanages for young children in St. Petersburg, Russian Federation. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 26, 477–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The St. Petersburg–USA Orphanage Research Team. (2008). The effects of early social–emotional and relationship experience on the development of young orphanage children. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 73, 1–262.Google Scholar
Tizard, B. (1977). Adoption: A second chance. London: Open Books.Google Scholar
Tizard, B., & Hodges, J. (1978). The effect of early institutional rearing on the development of eight-year-old children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 19, 99–118.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tizard, B., & Rees, J. (1975). The effect of early institutional rearing on the behavioural problems and affectional relationships of four-year-old children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 16, 61–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
US Department of State. (2009). Adoptions to the United States. Retrieved January 3, 2010, from http://www.adoption.state.gov/news/total_chart.htmlGoogle Scholar
van IJzendoorn, M. H., & Juffer, F. (2006). The Emanuel Miller Memorial Lecture 2006: Adoption as intervention. Meta-analytic evidence for massive catch-up and plasticity in physical, socio-emotional, and cognitive development. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 27, 1228–1245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vaughn, A., Mundy, P., Block, J., Burnette, C., Delgado, C., & Gomez, Y. (2003). Child, caregiver, and temperament contributions to infant joint attention. Infancy, 4, 603–616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Hipel, P. T. (2003). How many imputations are needed? A comment on Hershberger and Fisher. Structural Equation Modeling, 12, 334–335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Health Organization. (1992). International Classification of Diseases and related health problems (10th rev.). Geneva: Author.Google Scholar
Zeanah, C. H., Boris, N. W., & Lieberman, A. F. (2000). Attachment disorders of infancy. In Sameroff, A. J., Michael, L., & Miller, S. M. (Eds.), Handbook of developmental psychopathology (2nd ed.). New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Zeanah, C. H., & Smyke, A. T. (2002). Clinical disturbances of attachment in early childhood. In Zuckerman, B., Lieberman, A. F., & Fox, N. (Eds.), Emotion regulation: Infancy and early childhood (pp. 139–151). Calverton, CA: Johnson & Johnson Pediatric Institute.Google Scholar
Zeanah, C. H., Smyke, A. T., & Dumitrescu, A. (2002). Attachment disturbances in young children. II: Indiscriminate behavior and institutional care. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 41, 983–989.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed