This article from the Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology examines the extent to which psychosocial deprivation increases the risk of later cognitive and psychiatric difficulties and the downstream consequences of this for risk-taking behavior in adolescence. The current study included 165 children, 113 with a history of institutionalization and 52 with no such history.

This meta-analysis aims to clarify the size of the associations between disinhibited social engagement behavior (DSEB) and attachment insecurity or disorganization.

The authors of this study used data from a longitudinal randomized controlled trial of foster care for institutionally reared children to examine whether caregiving quality and stressful life events (SLEs) in early adolescence (age 12) influence patterns of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis and sympathetic nervous system (SNS) reactivity.

This study used data from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project – a randomized controlled trial of foster care for children raised in psychosocially depriving institutions – to examine the associations of the caregiving environment with reward processing, executive functioning, and internalizing and externalizing psychopathology at ages 8, 12, and 16 years, and evaluated whether these associations change across development.

This presentation - delivered by Marinus van IJzendoorn at a 18 November 2020 meeting of the Evidence for Impact Working Group, a working group of the recently launched Transforming Children's Care Global Collaborative Platform - presents evidence of the harmful impacts of institutionalization on children, demonstrates some of the benefits of deinstitutionalization for getting children back on track, and raises questions about gap-year volunteers working in orphanages.

The present study examined the protective effect of the error-related-negativity (ERN) in a sample of children who experienced at least 3-years of stable, relatively enriched caregiving after being internationally-adopted as infants/toddlers from institutional-care.

This systematic review critically evaluated the evidence for a causal association between child maltreatment and impaired cognition in children under 12 years.

This paper reviews the literature on child institutionalisation and deinstitutionalisation from a global perspective. This review included a survey of historical and cultural trends and estimates of current numbers of children in institutional care, a systematic review and meta­-analysis of developmental sequelae, and a largely qualitative review of factors found to predict individual variations in such outcomes.

In this commentary piece for The Lancet Psychiatry, Joan Kaufman highlights some key findings and recommendations from the Lancet Group Commission on the institutionalisation and deinstitutionalisation of children.

In this second part of the Lancet Group Commission on institutionalisation and deinstitutionalisation of children, international experts in reforming care for children identify evidence-based policy recommendations to promote family-based alternatives to institutionalisation.