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Children placed
in foster homes have higher IQs
(March 2008
Issue)
By Ami Albernaz
Toddlers taken from orphanages and placed in foster homes fared
significantly better on IQ tests than did children who were left
behind, a Harvard researcher and his colleagues found. The landmark
study, undertaken in Romania, has implications for children around
the world, the authors believe.
Children placed in foster care before they turned two seemed to
benefit most, hinting at a particularly critical period for child
brain development. The study appeared in the journal Science.
Though the finding that institutionalization seemed to stunt mental
development came as no surprise, it's impossible to know exactly
what about institutionalization is most damaging, says Charles
Nelson III, Ph.D., the study's lead author.
"We're assuming that this is profound global deprivation. We can't
pinpoint some things that seem to matter more than others," Nelson
says. "Is it the lack of a caregiver or that the kids would lie
on their backs staring at a white ceiling …? So many elements represent
deprivation that it's hard to say what contributes most to a bad
outcome."
The researchers randomly assigned 136 children living in Bucharest's
orphanages to either remain in the orphanages or to be placed with
foster families. As Romania had no foster care system when the
study began, Nelson and his colleagues constructed one themselves.
(The government, which requested the study, started its own foster
care program shortly after).
The team regularly tested both groups of children, finding that
by the age of four-and-a-half, those in foster homes were scoring
an average of 10 points higher on IQ tests than those left in the
orphanages. Children who had been placed before they turned two
scored almost 15 points higher. The researchers found that each
month spent in an orphanage, up to around the age of three, corresponded
with a half-point decrease in IQ.
The foster care in the study was of high quality, Nelson points
out. "It's not your garden-variety foster care," he says. While
he believes that lower quality foster care would still have resulted
in IQ improvements, he suspects the differences would not have been
so dramatic. Additionally, the children assigned to foster homes
did not test as well as a control group of children being reared
within their biological homes.
The researchers have begun testing the children at ages seven and
eight and expect to learn whether or not the performance gaps remain
the same. For now, Nelson says, the message to adoptive parents
is: "The earlier the child is placed in a good home, the better
the chance of having a good life. That doesn't mean a child adopted
later will have problems, but it elevates the risk."
The findings also have implications for child protection in the
U.S., Nelson adds. "There are kids who are abused and neglected
and not taken out of their homes early enough, if at all. Lots of
kids are languishing in bad environments. I think science can inform
these policies."
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