Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Nathan A. Fox, Ph. Here we review data from the BEIP with specific focus on attachment. The findings clearly show the importance of early family care on the emergence of attachment, on the prevention of psychopathology, and on links between brain and social behavior. Keywords: attachment, institutionalization, deprivation, neglect, brain development.
John Bowlby wrote about the negative effects of early maternal separation and institutionalization some 65 years ago Bowlby, In a report for the World Health Organization, he detailed these effects and advocated that young children should not be placed into institutions but rather should remain or be placed into families where they might receive warm, responsive, and loving careβall missing from institutional settings.
However, in many parts of the world today, 8 million abandoned or orphaned children are still being raised in socially depriving institutions UNICEF, It also provided the foundation and model for the development of social relationships with others. These first relationships between caregivers and infants were prototypical of what the child might expect as he or she got older and formed the basis for his or her developing relationships with other adults and peers.
There is now significant scientific evidence that being raised in institutions has detrimental effects on brain development and behavior, and greatly increases the risk of psychopathology. There are also data suggesting that being raised early in life in an institution has adverse effects of the development of social relationships, though up until recently these data were correlational in nature. The study, which began in Bucharest, Romania ten years after the fall of Ceascescu, recruited a sample of young children living in institutions in that city.
These children mean age of 22 months were assessed on a wide range of domains including cognition, brain activity, and attachment status while they were still living in these institutional settings. The families who accepted these children were recruited and screened by the study staff, and throughout the intervention until each child reached the age of 54 months , these families were provided significant psychological and economic support for caring for these previously institutionalized children.
