Is misused neuroscience defining early years and child protection policy? "Neuroscience can now explain why early conditions are so crucial," wrote Graham Allen and Iain Duncan Smith in their 2010 collaboration, Early Intervention: Good Parents, Great Kids, Better Citizens. "The more positive stimuli a baby is given, the more brain cells and synapses it will be able to develop. " Neuroscience is huge in early years policy. This week, in what's been characterised as the largest shake-up of family law in a generation, the 26-week time limit for adoption proceedings has come into force, much of it justified by the now-or-never urgency of this set of beliefs, that the first three years (or sometimes first 18 months) hardwire a baby's brain, either give it or deny it the capacity for a full life.
This is the engine of what is known as the First Three Years movement, which has transfixed politicians from across the spectrum. Here's the thing: what if it's over-baked? Val Gillies, a researcher in social policy at South Bank University, takes the scans head-on. Dr Helene Guldberg | The Determinist Myth of the Early Years. Tuesday 16 July 2013 Whether based on attachment theory or neurobabble, the claim that human beings are set in stone by the age of three is groundless. The idea that infant experiences are more important than experiences later in life in determining who we are dominates policy discussions on both sides of the Atlantic. Earlier this year, for example, US president Barack Obama claimed that ‘the early years in a child’s life – when the human brain is forming – represent a critically important window of opportunity to develop a child’s full potential’. In the UK, all the main political parties believe we can explain who we are as adults on the basis of the type of care we received in infancy.
Being a parent here is analogous to being a builder. But is it really the case that experiences in infancy have a determining effect on the rest of our lives? Attachment Theory There is criticism, however. Romanian orphanages and extreme deprivation The NSPCC is not alone in redefining ‘neglect’. The deterministic myth of the ‘early years’ | Books & Essays | Neuroscience | Parents and kids. But is it really the case that experiences in infancy have a determining effect on the rest of our lives? Is the quality of parents’ interactions so important that it can explain how the baby turns out as an adult?
Is Obama right to talk about infancy as a ‘window of opportunity’ to develop a child’s full potential’? When the window purportedly shuts, after infancy, is it too late to turn things around? Infant determinists invariably draw on attachment theory, the Ceausescu-era orphanages in Romania and neuroscience to back up their claims about human development. I will take a critical look at all three. Attachment Theory The UK psychiatrist John Bowlby argued that an important difference between ‘vulnerable’ and ‘resilient’ children is found in the quality of their earliest relationships, particularly their attachment to a mother figure. There is criticism, however. Romanian orphanages and extreme deprivation The NSPCC is not alone in redefining ‘neglect’.
English and Romanian Adoptee Study. The English and Romanian Adoptee (ERA) project is a longitudinal, multi-method investigation of the development of children adopted into the UK from Romania in the early 1990’s. It has been part-funded by the Nuffield Foundation, most recently to enable a follow up of the children aged 15. The ERA, led by Professor Michael Rutter and Professor Edmund Sonuga-Barke, has followed a random sample of 165 Romanian children, most of whom had spent their early lives in institutions in which conditions ranged from poor to abysmal.
Its aim is to examine the extent to which children could recover when extreme deprivation in early life is followed by a middle childhood within a safe family environment. The study has shown that children who experience extreme institutional deprivation will usually make a huge improvement in psychological functioning following successful adoption.
The evidence suggests that wider, more flexible criteria are possible for successful adoption within the UK. Early Neglect Alters Kids' Brains | Romanian Orphanages. Until the 1990s, the orphanages of Romania were notorious for their harsh, overcrowded conditions. Those perceptions have been borne out in new research that finds growing up in such an environment can change the brain for good. Institutionalization in early childhood can alter a child's brain and behavior in the long run, the research finds. Fortunately, early intervention can stave off the effects. The study, conducted with children growing up in Romanian orphanages, reveals changes in the brain composition of kids who spent their first years in institutions versus those who were randomly assigned to foster care.
The findings point to a "sensitive period" in the brain for social development, said study researcher Nathan Fox, a child development researcher at the University of Maryland. The finding adds to evidence that early childhood experiences can have lasting impacts on the brain, with one recent study showing that child abuse may shrink regions in the brain's hippocampus. What became of Romania's neglected orphans? BBC secret filming of the conditions in Romanian institutions A BBC investigation has uncovered appalling conditions and abuse in adult institutions in Romania, 20 years after the fall of Nicolai Ceausescu exposed conditions in the country's orphanages. As the care worker unlocked the door and pushed it open, a musty stench of body odour and urine filled the air.
There were 10 people crammed into the room, bed-bound on rotting mattresses and lying in their own faeces, some two to a bed. Among the dirty, scarred faces peering above the duvets were the orphans whose plight roused the international community when Romanian orphanages opened their doors to Western journalists in 1990. Staff at the Recovery and Rehabilitation Centre in Carpenis had no idea how old the latest arrivals from a children's orphanage were - they guessed 18 but they looked much younger. One of the boys was desperately thin. Another new arrival had deep cuts to her head. Notorious institutions Low standards Well-cared for. Chugani. Romanian orphans. Background[edit] Under Nicolae Ceauşescu, both abortion and contraception were forbidden, leading to a rise in birth rates.[2] In October 1966, the Decree 770 was enacted, which banned abortion, except in exceptional cases.[3] This resulted in a sudden increase in the birth rate, especially during the years of 1967, 1968 and 1969.[4] Children born in these years are popularly known as decreței (from the Romanian language word "decret", meaning "decree", diminutive "decrețel").
This increase in the number of births resulted in many children being abandoned, and these children were joined in the orphanages by disabled and mentally ill people. Together, these vulnerable groups were subjected to institutionalised neglect, physical and sexual abuse, and the use of drugs to control behaviour. Conditions in orphanages[edit] Orphanages lacked both medicines and washing facilities, and children were subject to sexual and physical abuse.[5] The U.S. Improvements[edit] Statistics[edit] Childhood neglect erodes the brain | Science | AAAS. In perhaps the most famous study of childhood neglect, researchers have closely tracked the progress, or lack of it, in children who lived as infants in Romania’s bleak orphanages and are now teenagers. A new analysis now shows that these children, who display a variety of behavioral and cognitive problems, have less white matter in their brains than do a group of comparable children in local families.
The affected brain regions include nerve bundles that support attention, general cognition, and emotion processing. The work suggests that sensory deprivation early in life can have dramatic anatomical impacts on the brain and may help explain the previously documented long-term negative effects on behavior. But there’s some potential good news: A small group of children who were taken out of orphanages and moved into foster homes at age 2 appeared to bounce back, at least in brain structure. The orphanages have sharply reduced their intake today. Bick agrees on that point. Romanian Orphans Investigation. AIMS: One of the consequences of psychological research into the effects of institutionalisation - see Separation, Maternal Deprivation and Evaluating Bowlby - was to greatly reduce the extent to which children were placed in such care.
As a result, there was little opportunity to replicate such studies until the overthrow of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu at the end of 1989. Under President Ceaucescu, it had been a legal requirement for women to have 5 children. In such a poor country, many parents could not afford to keep their children; so they were handed over to the State where they were kept in massive, very poor quality orphanages.
After the revolution, the appalling conditions in Romanian orphanages were revealed to the world. Many of the 40,000 infants and infants in the institutions were referred to as ‘non-recoverables’. Rutter et al wanted to find whether it was separation from mother or the severe circumstances in Romania that was responsible for any negative effects. Romanian Orphans Investigation. PSYCH3: Rutter’s Study on Romanian Orphans Romanian Orphans | masteryourstudies. Rutter’s Study on Romanian Orphans Romanian Orphans: In 1989 the Ceausescu regime was overthrown and it was found that there were between 100 to 300 thousand school-aged children in orphanages, many of whom had suffered sever emotional and physical deprivation.
Rutter (WRONGER) did a study on these children who had been adopted by Westerners after having lived with either a sense of deprivation or privation. Initial findings showed that the children had poor health (they were malnourished and had infectious diseases). They also had behaviour issues such as temper tantrums, excessive rocking, insomnia and indiscriminate friendliness. 111 children adopted younger than 2 years old from Romania to England were compared with 52 children of similar ages adopted within England. Rutter found that the Romanian children had poor physical health and a mean IQ of 63 (when adopted). Rutter also studied the issues relating to attachment and did not find the same positive findings. Like this: