Early family adversity, stability and consistency of institutional care and infant cognitive, language and motor development across the first six months of institutionalization

This study extends research on the effects of institutionalization—by examining the trajectories of cognitive, language and motor development of 64 Portuguese infants and toddlers across the first six months of institutionalization, while determining whether pre-institutional adversities and the stability and consistency of institutional care predict children’s development. At time of enrollment, 23.4%, 32.8% and 31.3% of the children were moderately to severely delayed, respectively, in their cognitive, linguistic and motor functioning. Developmental problems persisted after six months of institutionalization. The accumulation of early pre-institutional adversities predicted cognitive and motor limitations at admission to the institutions, but not variation in subsequent development. The stability and consistency of institutional care also failed to predict developmental growth and change. Children who had never lived with their families of origin showed a better language development at enrollment than their counterparts who had lived with their families of origin before institutionalization. Such advantage was followed by a deceleration in language growth after six months of institutional placement. Results are discussed in terms of short- vs. longer-term effects of institutionalization.
This study was conducted within the Psychology Research Centre, University of Minho, and partially supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (PTDC/PSI-PCL/101506/2008) and Fundação Bial (grant 13/06), and by the Portuguese Ministery of Education and Science through national funds and when applicable co-financed by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (UID/PSI/01662/2013). This study was also partially supported by grant 13/06 from Fundação BIAL. The authors are very grateful to the students who helped in data collection. Special thanks go to the children, caregivers, and other institutional staff who participated in the study.