Behavior Problems in Children Adopted from Socially-Emotionally Depriving Orphanages

Exposure to poor social-emotional conditions during early childhood may contribute to higher rates of behavior problems found among children adopted from orphanages. Behavior problem rates and scores were compared among school-aged children adopted from three different types of orphanages: 1) Russian orphanages in which children received adequate nutrition, health care, toys, and activities but were exposed to insensitive, unresponsive care from numerous, changing caregivers ("social-emotional" deprivation), 2) orphanages worldwide that varied in their levels of deprivation (Gunnar et al., 2007), and 3) severely or "globally" depriving 1990s Romanian orphanages (Groza & Ryan, 2002). Results indicated that socially-emotionally deprived children had higher rates and mean levels of Attention Problems and Aggressive Behavior than the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) standardization sample. Rates of these problems and also Social Problems showed a stepwise increase after 12 months of exposure to the orphanage. Children exposed to global deprivation and varying levels of deprivation showed a similar set of behavior problems. These results suggest that inadequate early social-emotional interactions and relationships may increase risk of behavior problems in post-institutionalized children. Globally deprived children had higher rates of Attention, Social, and Thought Problems than the other two post-institutionalized groups, providing evidence that these problems may be specifically associated with the severity of the orphanage environment