This article briefly summarizes the literature on elements of research, practice, and policy pertaining to the development and care of children raised in institutions. It covers such children’s development while they reside in institutions and after their transition to adoptive or foster families.

This comprehensive manual provides an overview of child abandonment and its prevention in Europe, exploring the extent of child abandonment, possible reasons behind this phenomenon, the consequences of abandonment, and good practices in terms of prevention. For the purposes of the EU Daphne-funded project, child abandonment is defined in two ways, namely open and secret abandonment. Country specific in-depth reviews of child abandonment and its prevention are provided for 10 countries and results from an EU-wide survey analyzed.

This chapter of Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Volume 76, Issue 4 is devoted to the analysis of the ill effects of early institutional experiences on resident children's development.

This chapter from Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Volume 76, Issue 4 reviews the neurobiological literature on early institutionalization that may account for the psychological and neurological sequelae discussed in other chapters in this volume.

This chapter from Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Volume 76, Issue 4 first presents a review of research on the development of adopted children, focusing on meta‐analytic evidence and highlighting comparisons between adopted children with and without histories of early adversity.

This monograph reviews literature pertaining to children without permanent parents.

This chapter from Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Volume 76, Issue 4 reviews sensitive periods in human brain development based on the literature on children raised in institutions.

Attachment has been assessed in the extreme environment of orphanages, but an important issue to be addressed in this chapter of Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Volume 76, Issue 4  is whether in addition to standard assessment procedures, such as the Strange Situation, the lack of a specific attachment in some institutionalized children should be taken into account given the limits to the development of stable relationships in institutionalized care.

This monograph contains nine chapters that review and discuss the empirical literature on the development of children who have been deprived of their permanent parents

Children within institutional care settings experience significant global growth suppression, which is more profound in children with a higher baseline risk of growth impairment (e.g., low birth weight [LBW] infants and children exposed to alcohol in utero), according to this chapter from Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Volume 76, Issue 4.