How Research Can Benefit Children and Families

     Through out the Early Childhood Studies Masters program, I have been fascinated by studies related to the early development of the human brain.  We have learned much over the last 10 - 20 years about the brain, and specifically about the physical and psychological affects neglect can have on the developing brain, and how that affects the nature and functionality of a person for life.  Researchers gained critical information about brain development from an atrocious situation that developed in Romania under the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu (1965-1989).  During Ceausescu's dictatorship, he came to believe that Romania could become a world power, if the "worker" population of Romania was significantly increased.  Therefore he encouraged couples to have not less than 4 children.  Eventually Ceausescu banded all forms of birth control and abortion.  Romania's population exploded, and many couples could not afford to raise the number of children they had.  Ceausescu then "assured" parents that any children they had and felt they could not care for, could be left at state run orphanages, and thus be cared for by the state.  Of course the orphanages quickly became over crowded and were understaffed.  Although children were fed and housed, they were contained in cribs for most of their young lives, with little or no socialization with adults and each other.  In 1989 Communism fell, and with it Ceausescu was executed.  Not until 1989, did the world learn of the Romanian orphanages.  Families from primarily the U.K. and the U.S. began adopting children from the Romanian orphanages.  As the many social and physical anomalies common to these children became apparent, researchers went to Romania to observe and study the situation.  Furthermore, many researchers studied children that were adopted into Western European, and North American families.  Through these research studies, we have learned that early social deprivation, often reeks havoc on the human brain's ability to develop and function appropriately, affecting all faculties necessary for life.  The following are excerpts from a study I thought to be fascinating.  It seems logical, that professionals working in the field of special education, and with children who have experienced neglect or abusive situations should know and understand these studies.  For this particular study referenced below, I highly recommend reading of the entire study.  From these unfortunate and appalling conditions in Romania, research was conducted that has brought better understanding to the significant realities associated with early brain development.

Social policies and severe economic problems in Romania in the 1980s resulted in early global deprivation for a large number of children. Over 65,000 children were placed in orphanages during this period, 85% of whom were placed within the first month of life (Ames and Carter, 1992; O’Connor and Rutter, 2000). Child–caregiver ratios were 10:1 for in- fants and 20:1 for children over 3 years of age (McMul- lan and Fisher, 1992), and infants spent up to 20 h per day in their cribs unattended (Ames and Carter, 1992). Studies of children following removal from the orphanages and adoption by families in the United Kingdom and North America revealed the presence of cognitive, social, and physical deficits (Ames, 1997; Rutter, 1998). At the time of adoption, the majority of the children showed cognitive performance in the mental retardation range based upon parent report on the Denver scale (Rutter, 1998). Longitudinal studies have demon- strated that these children showed considerable recovery by age 4 years (Ames, 1997; Rutter, 1998), but that deficits remaining at 4 years were also present at 6 years of age (O’Connor and Rutter, 2000) (Chugani, et al., 2001).

The major finding in the present study is that early global deprivation in the Romanian orphans is associ- ated with dysfunction in a number of brain regions, including orbital frontal cortex, prefrontal infralimbic cortex, lateral temporal cortex, medial temporal struc- tures, and brain stem. We selected a rigorous analysis approach using SPM to compare the pattern of glucose metabolism in Romanian orphans to that of normal adults, followed by an independent ROI approach and, finally, a second SPM analysis in which the pattern of glucose metabolism of the Romanian orphans was compared to that of the “normal” hemisphere of age- matched children with focal epilepsy. The same brain regions emerged as significantly different between Romanian orphans and controls across all three independent analyses (Chugani, et al., 2001).

The Romanian orphans in the present study showed evidence of bilateral dysfunction (as indicated by decreased glucose metabolism) of medial temporal structures including the amygdala and hippocampus, as well as bilateral dysfunction of the inferior temporal cortex. Characteristics of behavioral abnormalities at the time of adoption, including absence of crying, stereotyped behaviors such as rocking and head-banging, and social difficulties, may be related to bilateral dysfunction in these brain regions during early brain development (Chugani, et al., 2001).

In summary, children exposed to early social deprivation show longterm cognitive and behavioral deficits, associated with dysfunction (indicated by decreased glucose utilization) in a group of limbic brain regions known to be activated by stress and damaged by prolonged stress. We suggest that chronic stress endured in the Romanian orphanages during infancy in these children resulted in altered development of these limbic structures and that altered functional connections in these circuits may represent the mechanism underlying persistent behavioral disturbances in the Romanian orphans (Chugani, et al., 2001)

References:

Chugani, H. T., Behen, M. E., Muzik, O., Juhasz, C., Nagy, F., & Chugani, D. C. (2001). Local brain functional activity following early deprivation:  A study of postinstitutionalized Romanian orphans. NeuroImage, 14, 1290–1301. doi:10.1006/nimg.2001.0917