Related Experiment Videos
Institutional care: risk from family background or pattern of rearing?
Insights
Institutional rearing, compared to foster care, significantly increases hyperactivity and emotional disturbance in children with genetic risks. This highlights the impact of early care environments on child development and behavior.
Area of Science:
- Child Psychology
- Developmental Psychology
- Behavioral Science
Background:
- Children in substitute parental care often exhibit emotional and behavioral issues.
- The origins of these issues are debated: genetic predisposition, pre-care adversities, or substitute care experiences.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the specific impact of institutional rearing versus stable foster care on children's behavior.
- To differentiate the effects of rearing environment from genetic and early life risks.
Main Methods:
- Compared primary school children (aged <12 months in care): 19 in institutional care, 19 in foster care.
- Matched groups for age, gender, and similar high-risk biological family backgrounds.
- Utilized teacher questionnaires, classroom observations, cognitive testing, and parental questionnaires against classroom controls.
Main Results:
- All substitute care children showed higher hyperactivity/inattention than controls.
- Institutionalized children exhibited significantly higher hyperactivity/inattention than foster care children.
- Parental reports indicated greater unsociability and emotional disturbance in the institutional group.
Conclusions:
- Institutional rearing, even with pre-existing genetic risks, predisposes children to hyperactivity/inattention.
- The quality of substitute care environment significantly influences behavioral outcomes.
- Findings underscore the detrimental effects of institutional environments on child development.
Abstract:
Previous research has shown that children receiving substitute parental care tend to have high rates of emotional/behavioural disturbance, but uncertainty remains on the extent to which this derives from genetic risk, adverse experiences before receiving substitute care, or from risks associated with substitute care experiences. In order to examine the effects of institutional rearing (as a specific form of substitute care), two groups of primary school children reared in substitute care from before the age of 12 months were compared: 19 children in residential group (institutional) care and 19 in continuous stable foster family care (matched for age and gender). The two groups were similar in coming from biological families with high rates of psychopathology and social malfunctioning, but differed with respect to pattern of rearing. Both groups were compared with classroom controls, using teacher questionnaires, systematic classroom observations, and standardised cognitive testing. Parental questionnaires were also obtained for the two substitute care groups. As found previously, the combined substitute care groups differed from controls in showing a high level of hyperactivity/inattention. The observational measures showed a similar effect, indicating that the elevated rate was not attributable to rater bias. The teacher questionnaire and observational measures showed, however, that the increased level of hyperactivity/ inattention was substantially higher in the institutional group than the foster family group. Parental questionnaire ratings showed the same contrast between the groups, except that the main difference was on unsociability and emotional disturbance rather than hyperactivity/ inattention. It is concluded that, against a background of genetic and early environmental risk, institutional rearing predisposes to a pattern of hyperactivity/inattention.