A positive outlook for adopted Romanian orphanage children

After the rush of Romanian adoptions--663 children found Canadian homes in 1991--how did the children fare in their new lives? And how did the adoptive parents cope with the stresses they ran into? Those were the questions asked in a recent study by Elinor W. Ames and seven other researchers at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.

Using interviews and questionnaires, the researchers interviewed/studied 34 families in British Columbia who had adopted 39 Romanian children, from 21 orphanages. The children had spent at least eight months in an institution. At the time of the interviews the children were about 18 months old on average and had been in Canada about 10 months.

Findings
In the Romanian orphanages the conditions were extreme: the sample studied "has the worst child-to-caregiver ratio" of any such study, in the words of Elinor W. Ames--15:1 for one to three-year- olds. The children had no opportunity to form an attachment relationship.

[Summary: the Romanian adoptees had many medical problems, were developmentally delayed, showed more behaviour problems than Canadian children, and their attachment behaviours to their new parents were ambivalent or indiscriminate.]

The children didn't have enought to eat or drink and were underweight. Many had medical problems and were developmentally delayed. Typically a child could not stand alone or bang two objects together, and spoke no words; over half made no sounds but crying. For the parents, the behaviours of most concern were their child's rocking and eating problems: disliking solid food and eating too much. Attachment: they were indiscriminately friendly to all adults.

As for the child's current abilities, the parents reported many fewer delays; the behaviour problems have greatly decreased. The 28 children adopted when they were under two years old showed the most progress, especially in areas such as fine motor ability. Seven showed no delays at all. [compared to orphanage]

The children adopted after 2 years of age, though in Canada the same average time as the younger ones, continued to show many of the developmental delays they had in the orphanage--still behind on language and fine motor behaviour. Nonetheless their progress continues and could catch up to North American standards of development, though only a later study could prove this.

Deprivation
As for the parents, most adoptive parents knew about health problems in the children, but were not dissuaded from adopting; they were highly motivated to get a child. But the parents were stressed by the number of problems their children showed. Nevertheless, the parents were happy with their decision and said they would do it all over again.

Conclusions
There were developmental delays in these children raised under poor institutional conditions. They showed behaviour problems such as rocking back and forth, dislike of solids, willingness to eat enormous quantities of food. The children were often over-friendly and did not attach quickly to their new parents; now we see some beginning signs of attachment in the adopted Romanian orphans.

The Ames Study--Positive prognosis for children adopted from Romanian orphanages

Dr. Elinor W. Ames, of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, recently reported the results of the Romanian Adoption Research Project. Its aim was to examine the effects of institutionalization on the subsequent development of the children. I talked to Dr. Ames about her findings.

Adoption Helper: What was the major finding of your study?
Elinor Ames: I think one of the most important things for parents, is that the parents [in our study] anticipated that children from the orphanages would be delayed, but they didn't think so much about some of the behavioural and emotional problems that the children would have. So afterwards,they were more upset by the fact that their children rocked back and forth, or that they absolutely refused to eat solid food, than they were that the children couldn't do all the things that Canadian children of the same age could do. It seemed reasonable to them that the children were delayed. But it was the kids' bizarre behaviour that bothered them. [The children] do have some weird behaviours. But in all cases, these are slowly declining.

AH: You said that perhaps the parents were not adequately prepared for the adoptions?
EA: Particularly with Romanian adoptions, I think the first people who went knew very little. They did have the counsel of some of us who had been to see the orphanages. But I think that people are so strongly motivated, they want this child so much, that they're willing to dash off and they do not listen. I was telling people before, if you go to adopt an orphanage child, think of it as a special needs adoption. This is not the adoption of a normal child to start. The difference is that although many of these children will become very normal, they have many behavioural problems.

AH: You said they will become normal...so the prognosis for these children is good?
EA: I would think that the great majority of them will come within the normal range, in terms of intellect, school performance, getting along within their families. I think a minority of them will probably have some differences, some problems in attachment. But I'm not sure about that. They're still moving. What struck us was that their parents thought they looked fine, because they were very loving, because they would sit on their parents' laps and they were very loving children. But what the parents didn't seem to realize was at that time, was that they were equally loving with people outside the family. So they would go off with a stranger, they would wander off and not get upset when they couldn't see their parents any more. They were friendly with everybody. And the parents took that as 'they are already attached to me', but it was sort of like they just loved people. They'd just discovered people for the first time who will do things for them. Nobody in the orphanage had any time for them. Now everybody wants to do things and get them things, and I think they're in love with humanity in general. And they have to go through that. If you think of it in a normal baby ... a five month old baby is like that. He'll smile at anybody. You can hand him to anybody. And these kids seem to me to be back at that level.

AH: But they can, ultimately, we hope, attach?
EA: We do not know yet. We hope so. And I would predict that most of them will make fairly normal attachments. But this is something we really don't know a lot about.

Intercountry Adoption In Canada

Here are the key findings and recommendations of this study, funded in 1991 by National Welfare Grants Division of Human Resources and Development Canada. The study's aim was to find out how well internationally adopted children and their families fared when the child reached adolescence and young adulthood. The results of this study permit an assessment to be made of whether there are serious adjustment problems for children adopted from out-of country. This information will help individuals decide whether to choose this way of making a family. And it will help Canada and the countries from which children are adopted to decide whther this form of adoption should be continue and be supported.

The study involved interviewing 126 families in B.C., Ontario and Quebec. Key findings are stated in the areas of family integration, self-esteem, school performance, peer relations, ethnic identification, racial identification and racism/prejudice.

The study concluded that intercountry adoptees seem to function at least as well as you would expect in the general population. The evidence supports continued intercountry adoption. The adoptees in this study appear to be well-integrated into their families, have high self-esteem, have friends and positive peer relations. They do well in school. The only area of concern is regarding ethnic and racial identity. More than 80% of the adoptees had experienced racial discrimination.

The study recommended that Canada continue to be open to intercountry adoption. It specifically recommended:
-- Ministries of Education and school boards should continue their commitment to programs to prevent racism and should train school staff on how to handle racism.
-- Intercountry adoption should be kept affordable.
-- Preplacement services should be offered to prospective parents with a focus on the life changes that occur with intercountry adoption.
-- Postplacement education and support services should be offered to parents and intercountry adoptees.
-- An information system is needed to monitor the number of children entering Canada through intercountry adoption.
The study also urged training for:
-- Child welfare, mental health and health care workers, to help them recognize their own ethnic and racial prejudices.
-- Child welfare and mental health workers, on the dynamics of transcultural and transracial families.
-- Physicians, on the health problems that adoptees may have on entering the country.

Source: Adoption Helper, and Windows on Adoption (APA of BC), Feb. 1994, p. 21

Westhues/Cohen study

Canada should continue to be open to intercountry adoption-- that's the conclusion of a new study, "Intercountry Adoption in Canada".

Professors Anne Westhues, of Wilfrid Laurier University, and Joyce Cohen, of the University of Toronto, studied how well internationally adopted children and their families have fared when the children reached adolescence and young adulthood.

Their study involved 126 families in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec, and included 155 intercountry adoptees and 121 siblings. They answered questions on family integration, self-esteem, school performance, peer relations, ethnic and racial identification, and the experience of prejudice or racism. The conclusion was that intercountry adoptees appear to be functioning at least as well as would be expected in the general population.

Westhues and Cohen had these recommendations:
-- Ministries of Education and local school boards continue their commitment to provide programs aimed at prevention of racism, and training to school personnel on how to handle racism.
-- Intercountry adoption should be kept affordable.
-- Preplacement services be offered to prospective adoptive parents focusing on the life changes that come with intercountry adoption.
-- Postplacement services be offered to parents and intercountry adoptees with a focus on education and support.
-- Training is needed for social workers doing homestudies, with uniform homestudy guidelines; also training with respect to culture in the countries of origin of children; training for child welfare, mental health and health care workers in recognizing their own ethnic and racial prejudices, and in the dynamics of transcultural and transracial families; and for physicians on the health care problems that intercountry adoptees may have on entering the country.
-- An information system is required to permit monitoring of the number of children admitted to Canada through intercountry adoption.
-- As much background information as possible be obtained about such adoptees, especially for those adopted at an older age.
-- Canada continue its commitment to Third World development, especially to improve the well-being of children; the National Adoption Desk and parent groups act as advocates.
It should be noted that the post-placement service that adoptive parents felt would be most useful was support and education through a parent support group (76.9%) (p. 55-57).

Source: Newsletter of the Adoption Council of Canada, March 1994, p. 1

Fertility Adoption Adoption Resource Central Post-adoption Family Tree Contact: Robin Hilborn, helper@familyhelper.net Box 1353, Southampton, Ont. N0H 2L0 Canada Copyright 2009 Robin R. Hilborn Updated July 15, 2006 Family Helper www.familyhelper.net   A WEB RESOURCE FOR FAMILIES SINCE 1996 VISITS SINCE MAY 5, 2009 About us    Copyright    Privacy    Disclaimer