Early adolescent outcomes of institutionally-deprived and non-deprived adoptees. II: language as a protective factor and a vulnerable outcome.
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.
Croft
Carla
C
MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, UK.
Beckett
Celia
C
Rutter
Michael
M
Castle
Jenny
J
Colvert
Emma
E
Groothues
Christine
C
Hawkins
Amanda
A
Kreppner
Jana
J
Stevens
Suzanne E
SE
Sonuga-Barke
Edmund J S
EJ
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