title: Early adolescent outcomes of institutionally-deprived and non-deprived adoptees. II: language as a protective factor and a vulnerable outcome.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  There is uncertainty about the extent to which language skills are part of general intelligence and even more uncertainty on whether deprivation has differential effects on language and non-language skills.
  
  
  METHODS
  Language and cognitive outcomes at 6 and 11 years of age were compared between a sample of 132 institution-reared Romanian children adopted into UK families under the age of 42 months, and a sample of 49 children adopted within the UK under the age of 6 months who had not experienced either institutional rearing or profound deprivation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The effects of institutional deprivation were basically similar for language and cognitive outcomes at age 6; in both there were few negative effects of deprivation if it ended before the age of 6 months and there was no linear association with duration of deprivation within the 6 to 42 month range. For the children over 18 months on arrival (range 18-42 months), the presence of even very minimal language skills (imitation of speech sounds) at the time of arrival was a strong beneficial prognostic factor for language and cognitive outcomes, but not for social/emotional/behavioural outcomes. Individual variations in adoptive parent characteristics were unrelated to differences in language or cognitive outcomes, possibly as a consequence of the limited variability in the adoptive family group.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Minimal language probably indexes some form of cognitive reserve that, in turn, indexes the degree of institutional deprivation.
authors.affiliation: MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, UK.
authors.forename: Carla
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Croft
authors.forename: Celia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Beckett
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rutter
authors.forename: Jenny
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Castle
authors.forename: Emma
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Colvert
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Groothues
authors.forename: Amanda
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hawkins
authors.forename: Jana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kreppner
authors.forename: Suzanne E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Stevens
authors.forename: Edmund J S
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Sonuga-Barke
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000300:Adoption; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007326:Institutionalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008037:Linguistics / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D009633:Nonverbal Communication; D015995:Prevalence; D011610:Psychosocial Deprivation; D012383:Romania / Q000208:ethnology; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D006113:United Kingdom