Background: Children and adolescents in residential care have more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) than those living in any other type of care. However, there is scant research on risk factors accounting for this accumulation. Objective: To establish the prevalence of ACEs in child residential care and to explore predictors of accumulation…

Over the last 20 years, we have learned much about the extent to which early-life deprivation affects the mental health of children and adolescents. This body of evidence comes predominantly from studies of children raised in institutional care. The Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP) is the only randomized controlled trial designed to…

This study aimed to investigate the link between Foreign Language Enjoyment, Foreign Language Anxiety and Willingness to Communicate in Denisa and Anda, two high school learners of English as a Foreign Language in Romania. Qualitative data were collected during a school semester including lesson observations, a written task and semi-structured…

This article examines the educational experiences of Eastern European Roma undergraduates and analyses how the mobility process influences their access to university in different countries of the European Union. Drawing on 20 in-depth semi-structured interviews, the paper highlights the ability of students to (re)define their identity and to…

Throughout this monograph, there has been frequent reference to levels of risk, inference of causation, testing for mediating variables, and the need to consider possible moderating influences. In this chapter, the authors review what is meant by these concepts, and then seek to pull together the findings from the English and Romanian Adoptee…

There is an abundance of evidence showing relatively strong associations between family characteristics and a child's psychological functioning--both within the normal range and, also, with reference to psychopathology. That has sometimes led to the assumption that equally strong associations should be found within adoptive families. Nevertheless,…

Whereas metaanalyses of cross-sectional adoption studies have indicated that there is an impact of early deprivation on adoptee's cognitive ability, these effects generally diminish markedly after upbringing in adoptive homes. Outcomes in terms of scholastic attainment were not quite so positive in a cross-sectional metaanalysis, but the Swedish…

This monograph is concerned with the mid adolescent follow-up of a group of adoptees from Romania and from within the United Kingdom who were first assessed at the age of 4 years (or 6 years in the case of the oldest children). After describing the structure of this monograph, this chapter provides the background as it applied at the time that the…

It has come to be generally accepted that the psychopathological effects of psychosocial stress and adversity are diagnostically nonspecific. There is a good deal of supporting evidence in support of this assumption, even though it may be that the nonspecificity has been exaggerated through a failure to take account of comorbidity. This chapter…

The authors' previous work and the data reported in the preceding chapters of this monograph provide conclusive evidence of the persistent nature of the negative impact of early severe deprivation. Institutional deprivation, despite the good outcomes for many, was often associated with substantial impairment and disorder across a wide range of…

This monograph provides critical insights into identifying which threads to pull in the "web of causation" to discern the impact of adverse early life experiences, and it provides guidance regarding how to identify patterns of behavior that are likely to reflect the impact of such experiences. In this article, the author offers her…

The development of conduct and emotional problems involves a complex interplay between environmental and genetic factors. The child-rearing environment contributes to this process. Gross deviations, such as those seen in abusive or neglectful homes, or where the parent has serious mental health problems, have been shown to contribute to the…

This chapter covers the methods and measures used in the ERA study, with a special focus on age 15 outcomes. First, the authors outline the sample participation rate for the 15-year follow-up--the percentages in all cases referring to the numbers at the time of initial sample contact. They then describe the measures used in this monograph,…

The current study examined the persistence and phenotypic presentation of inattention/overactivity (I/O) into early adolescence, in a sample of institution reared (IR) children adopted from Romania before the age of 43 months. Total sample comprised 144 IR and 21 non-IR Romanian adoptees, and a comparison group of 52 within-UK adoptees, assessed…

In this monograph, the authors have brought the findings of the English and Romanian Adoptee (ERA) study up to age 15 years and, in so doing, have focused especially on the question of whether there are deprivation-specific psychological patterns (DSPs) that differ meaningfully from other forms of psychopathology. For this purpose, their main…