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The research into privation is limited, as happily it is not a regular occurrence. Studies consist of;
- Case studies, such as the story of Genie (Curtiss 1977), or the Czech twins (Koluchova 1976-91).
- Studies of institutionalised children, such as Hodges and Tizard (1989), Goldfarb (1943) and Spitz & Wolf (1946)
In the case studies, the children had been isolated through their early lives and found at various ages. The effects of privation are varied, some children, never recovering properly, to enable a productive and independent life and others recovering totally. As said, the occurrence of this type of privation is rare, so the results of analysis cannot be generalised to the general population.
| Curtiss 1977 |
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Genie was a girl found at the age of 13, she had been living in one room all her life, without any form of nurturing, affection, adequate nutrition. She had been strapped to a potty chair in a room bare of other furniture. Her father had punished her if she had made a noise and no one in the outside world was aware of her existence, until discovery.
When she was found, she had the appearance of a child less than half her age, she was ‘unsocialised and hardly human’. She had no language, could barely walk and no social skills.
Genie was studied by psychologist and eventually passed to a foster family, but any development that was achieved in the first instance regressed, probably due to again being abused by the foster family. She was not capable of living an independent life.
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| Koluchova 1976 |
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The Czechoslovakian male, monozygotic twins were found at the age of 7. The twin’s mother had died when they were 11 months old and they were then dispatched to an aunt for 6 months, but were then taken back by their father, who had now re-married. The father was low in intelligence and the step-mother very wicked. The boys were subjected to very bad treatment from her, with no contradiction from the father. The boys either lived in a small cold cupboard or in the cellar.
When the boys were found, they were malnourished, fearful of everything and suffering from severe rickets, unable to walk very much. Their speech was also very under-developed and poor.
The boys were cared for and fostered into loving homes, over the years they caught up with their development and were able to have good and productive lives, both with jobs and families of their own.
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If we look at these case studies, the comparison of outcome appears remarkable, but if we look at the two cases in more depth, there maybe good reasons for the different outcomes
- Firstly the start to the lives of the children were different, the boys had an opportunity to attach to their mother in the first 11 months of their lives, this would mean they had suffered from deprivation, rather than privation.
- Genie was the subject of isolation from birth, with no attachments formed at all, though her mother had argued she had a relationship with Genie, it was not clearly evident.
- Genie’s father had locked her away because he thought she was retarded, so this could have a baring on her future development, if she was.
- The twins had each other all through the 7 years, so they could attached to each other, which would be a good reason why they were capable of recovering from their ill-treatment.
- Genie was never given the care the twins received after discovery and continued to be abused.
- Genie was found at the age of 13, when all the stages of development should have been complete (refer to Freud’s psychosexual stages of development for example)
- The twins were discovered at the age of 7, which meant they still had time to advance through the stages of development they had missed and go through those still to come.
| Hodges & Tizard (1989) |
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This longitudinal (over a long period of time) study was interested in looking at the effects of privation on social, emotional and cognitive development. They looked at 65 children, who had been admitted to the institution before the age of 4 months old. The institute had rules against any staff forming attachments with the children, therefore, it was assumed the children had experienced privation in their time at the institution. By the age of 4, the children became part of one of three groups naturally
- 24 children were adopted
- 15 children had returned to their natural parents
- 26 children remained in the institution
All children were then assessed at the age of 8 and 16 years to test the effects of privation.
A group of 65 children, who had a ‘normal’ upbringing (without privation) were also assessed, this was a control group , so a base-line of ‘normal’ behaviour could be established.
The assessments for the experimental group (institutionalised children) and control group (‘normal’ children), were in the form of interviews and questionnaires from their parents, teachers and peers.
What they found
There were differences in the adopted group and the restored group, the adopted group had closer relationships with close family, but the restored children had more negative relationships with close family.
But both the restored and adopted group were attention seeking and seeking approval more than the control group, the same as the remaining institutionalised children and all the institutionalised children had trouble making friends with their peers, compared to the control group
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The differences in behaviour maybe due to ‘reactive attachment disorder’ , which is characterised by the inability to give or receive affection, cruelty to others, including pets and inanimate objects. There is difficulty with maintaining eye contact with others, speech problems and a tendency to dishonesty. Probably due to these characteristics, they have difficulty making and keeping friends and maybe control crazy. (Parker & Forrest 1993)
In 1943 Goldfarb carried out a study on the effects of institutionalisation, this was a study of privation because the 15 children studied were raised in the institution from the age of 6 months to 3 and a half years, who were then fostered. It could be argued we could also be looking at deprivation, as we do not know if the children had formed an attachment prior to the 6 months. These 15 children were compared to another 15 children, who had been fostered straight from their mothers., the control group.
The institutionalised children were isolated in their first year and then matched to foster parents who were then matched to the birth mother’s genetics, education and occupational status.
At age 3 all children were measured in abstract thinking, social maturity, rule-following and sociability. The institutionalised children were all behind the control group in measurement results.
At age 10-14, the institutionalised children continued to perform poorly on compared tests of aptitude, including IQ tests, where excessively different from the non-institutionalised children i.e. 72 points compared to 95 points
The problem with this study was a lack of true randomisation of participants, it is unclear why the experimental group were left in institute and others fostered. Was there a difference in the children in the first place ? There may have been inherent differences in personality, health and social releasers for social adeptness.
These could have been relevant but Goldfarb concluded poorer abilities were down to institutionalisation.
| Spitz 1945,46 Spitz & Wolf 1946 |
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Another group of studies into the effects of privation looked at the orphans of Poor South American orphanages, where staff were under-trained and over-worked. Staff rarely had time to interact with the children one-to-one, pick them up, or give any sort of affection to them. Even when the babies were being fed, they were not held, instead the bottles were left propped in the babies mouths. The children had no toys or any type of positive stimulus.
Research found that of 91 orphanages in the USA and Canada, one third died before their 1st birthday, despite good nourishment and medical care.
The children displayed anaclitic depression (reaction to loss of love object), which was characterised by; apprehension, sadness, weepiness, withdrawal, loss of appetite, refusal to eat, weight loss, sleep problems, developmental retardation. Recovery was rare.
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When looking at children from institutions, who have experienced privation, it is important to take into account the following;
- The institution itself could be part of the problem with development, the children have to fend for themselves quickly and this may have a large impact on their future development.
- The one-to-one contact generally found with parent and child is lost, there is no gazing, not response to social releasers, no reward for social behaviour that would be desired, so it disappears. There are no comforting associations.
- There is a lack of stimulation in institutions that will have an impact on all forms of development, such as language development becoming retarded and lack of social development.
(Note : The Harlow study  mentioned when talking about formation of attachment with the monkeys can also be used by students to answer and evaluate questions on privation, as the monkeys were all subject to privation, due to being taken off their mothers at birth.)
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