After the fall of communism in Romania, thousands of young people were found in institutional orphanages across the country. Due to the high child-to-guardian ratios, these young people have been neglected, with low overall levels of care, and highly regulated non-individualized. Charles Zeanah, Charles Nelson and Nathan Fox, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with no foster program at the time in Romania, established a new grant-funded foster intervention program. with common visits to host families through a committed team of social workers.
Children were randomly chosen to participate in this foster care program, giving scientists a rare opportunity to investigate what happens to children’s brains when they don’t have attention or emotional connection. A new study from the organization published Oct. 7 in Science Advances shows that early deprivation continues with brain progression into adolescence.
We know, thanks to years of working with animals, that early experiments in brain progression shape life, but so far this has never been conclusively demonstrated in humans. “
Margaret Sheridan is the leader of a new study showing that deprivation in the early formative years shapes the progress of brain design in adolescence.
Sheridan and a team of researchers from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project published their findings in Science Advances. Their studies show that children who were randomly placed outside of institutional care and in a well-supported foster home before age 3 had adjustments in brain spaces that heralded higher-order problem-solving years later, when the young people were 16.
In addition, youth placed in high-quality foster homes before age 3 saw typical brain progression between ages 9 and 16, in spaces similar to emotional reactivity, language, and executive function, but this trend replaced youth without family worries.
“Here, we show that the opportunities a child has early in life to be informed and grow will have an effect not only on their behavior, but also on the progression and design of their brain for years to come,” Sheridan says. “Children want committed caregivers who help their progression from an early age. “
The Bucharest Early Intervention Project, introduced in 2001, is a landmark study on the impact of institutionalization, a severe form of neglect, on children’s development. This is the only randomised controlled trial of foster care as an alternative to institutionalisation. At 6 and 33 months, 68 children were taken out of orphanages and placed in quality foster families. Families who received a foster child won a visit from a social worker and gained significant monetary support, which helped families integrate and provide support.
Children were followed throughout their childhood, and early evidence of the negative effect of institutionalisation on progression replaced the way Romania approached childcare and family leave.
“This new evidence shows that what doesn’t happen to children is the same thing that happens to a child’s brain development,” Sheridan says.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Sheridan, MA, et al. (2022) Early deprivation alters brain structure from childhood to adolescence. Progress scientifiques. doi. org/10. 1126/sciadv. abn4316.
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