The goal of the present study was to investigate the role of early social deprivation in shaping the effectiveness of parent support to alleviate hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA)-axis-stress responses of children (ages 8.9-11, M = 9.83 years, SD = 0.55). The sample was equally divided between children who had been adopted internationally from…

Associations between early deprivation and memory functioning were examined in 9- to 11-year-old children. Children who had experienced prolonged institutional care prior to adoption were compared to children who were adopted early from foster care and children reared in birth families. Measures included the Paired Associates Learning task from…

Associations between early deprivation/neglect in the form of institutional care with the cortisol awakening response (CAR) were examined as a function of pubertal status among 12- and 13-year-old postinstitutionalized youth. CARs indexed hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical reactivity. Postinstitutionalized youth were compared to youth adopted…

Purpose: In this study, the authors investigated sentence comprehension and spatial working memory abilities in a sample of internationally adopted, postinstitutionalized (PI) children. The authors compared the performance of these PI children with that of an age-matched group of children living with their birth families. They hypothesized that PI…

Severe deprivation in the first few years of life is associated with multiple difficulties in cognition and behavior. However, the brain basis for these difficulties is poorly understood. Structural and functional neuroimaging studies have implicated limbic system structures as dysfunctional, and one functional imaging study in a heterogeneous…

Background/Methods: Sensory processing capacities of 8-12-year-old internationally adopted (IA) children who experienced prolonged institutional care (greater than 12 months with 75% of pre-adoption lives in institutional care) prior to adoption into family environments (PI) were compared to a group of IA children who were adopted early (less than…

While effects of institutional care on behavioral development have been studied extensively, effects on neural systems underlying these socioemotional and attention deficits are only beginning to be examined. The current study assessed electroencephalogram (EEG) power in 18-month-old internationally adopted, postinstitutionalized children (n = 37)…

We examined inattention/overactivity (I/O) over time and in relation to caregiving in three matched groups: (1) Romanian Orphans (RO) with a minimum of eight months' deprivation prior to adoption, (2) Early Adopted (EA) children adopted from Romania prior to age four months, and (3) Canadian Born (CB) non-adopted children. Comparisons among groups…

There is an abundance of evidence showing relatively strong associations between family characteristics and a child's psychological functioning--both within the normal range and, also, with reference to psychopathology. That has sometimes led to the assumption that equally strong associations should be found within adoptive families. Nevertheless,…

Early-life stress (ES) has been associated with diverse forms of psychopathology. Some investigators suggest that these associations reflect the effects of stress on the neural circuits that support cognitive control. However, very few prior studies have examined the associations between ES, cognitive control, and underlying neural architecture.…

In this monograph, the authors have brought the findings of the English and Romanian Adoptee (ERA) study up to age 15 years and, in so doing, have focused especially on the question of whether there are deprivation-specific psychological patterns (DSPs) that differ meaningfully from other forms of psychopathology. For this purpose, their main…

In chapter IV, the authors focused on their findings on the developmental course of deprivation-specific psychological patterns (DSPs). The authors rediscussed the syndrome concept in the light of two main considerations. First, the findings indicated substantial overlap among the four postulated DSPs at 15 years including CI and I/O before…

The relationship between severe early institutional deprivation and scholastic attainment at age 11 in 127 children (68 girls and 59 boys) adopted from institutions in Romania was compared to the attainment of 49 children (17 girls and 32 boys) adopted within the UK from a non-institutional background. Overall, children adopted from Romania had…

Background: There is uncertainty about the extent to which language skills are part of general intelligence and even more uncertainty on whether deprivation has differential effects on language and non-language skills. Methods: Language and cognitive outcomes at 6 and 11 years of age were compared between a sample of 132 institution-reared…

Cognitive outcomes at age 11 of 131 Romanian adoptees from institutions were compared with 50 U.K. adopted children. Key findings were of both continuity and change: (1) marked adverse effects persisted at age 11 for many of the children who were over 6 months on arrival; (2) there was some catch-up between ages 6 and 11 for the bottom 15%; (3)…