This study examined whether interventions in Russian Baby Homes promoting warm, sensitive, and responsive caregiver-child interactions and relationships would be associated with advantages in those children’s behavior years after they transitioned to family care.
Children (N = 135) who had resided for at least 3 months (M = 13.8 months) in 1 of 3 intervention institutions were subsequently placed in Russian families (relatives or nonrelatives) for at least 1 year (M = 33.5 months). When children were 1.5 to 10.8 years of age, parents provided ratings of attachment, indiscriminate friendliness, executive functioning, social-emotional development, and behavior problems. Despite very substantial differences in the developmental status of children at departure from the 3 institutions, there were fewer than expected significant differences between children from the 3 institutions at follow-up or as a function of being placed with relatives or nonrelatives. Specifically, children reared in the most improved institution displayed less indiscriminate friendliness, were less aggressive/defiant, and had less externalizing behavior. Children from all 3 institutions who were placed into families at older ages tended to be rated more poorly on some measures.
These results suggest that previously institutionalized children adjust well to family life, but improved institutional caregiving can have some persistent benefits over several years in children transitioned to families.