Early adversity and children's regulatory deficits: Does postadoption parenting facilitate recovery in postinstitutionalized children?

Abstract

Children reared in orphanages typically experience the lack of stable, reliable caregivers and are at increased risk for deficits in regulatory abilities including difficulties in inhibitory control, attention, and emotion regulation. Although adoption results in a radical shift in caregiving quality, there remains variation in postadoption parenting, yet little research has examined postadoption parenting that may promote recovery in children experiencing early life adversity in the form of institutional care. Participants included 93 postinstitutionalized children adopted between 15 and 36 months of age and 52 nonadopted same-aged peers. Parenting was assessed four times during the first 2 years postadoption (at 2, 8, 16, and 24 months postadoption) and children's regulation was assessed at age 5 (M age = 61.68 months) and during kindergarten (M age = 71.55 months). Multiple parenting dimensions including sensitivity/responsiveness, structure/limit setting, and consistency in routines were examined. Both parental sensitivity and structure moderated the effect of preadoption adversity on children's emotion regulation while greater consistency was associated with better inhibitory control and fewer attention problems. Results support the notion that postadoption parenting during toddlerhood and the early preschool years promotes better regulation skills following early adversity.

Child‐parent cardiac transference is decreased following disrupted/absent early care

“…Another possibility is that only a low threshold of caregiving disruption/absence needed to be met before the effects were observed, or that the relationship between time of adoption and cardiac transference is non-linear. A final possibility (that also has support in some prior literature (Anthony et al, 2019;Garvin et al, 2012;Koss et al, 2020) To our knowledge, RMSSD and SDNN has not yet been examined in youth exposed to disrupted/absent caregiving, but the finding that these values are higher following exposure to disrupted/absent caregiving runs counter to expectations based on past work in youth with anxiety disorders, who show lower values on these metrics (Nikolić et al, 2018;Sharma et al, 2011). Such discrepancies may be related to the fact that we collected HRV at rest, or genuine differences between disrupted/absent caregiving exposed and anxious groups of youth.…”

“…Another possibility is that only a low threshold of caregiving disruption/absence needed to be met before the effects were observed, or that the relationship between time of adoption and cardiac transference is non‐linear. A final possibility (that also has support in some prior literature (Anthony et al, 2019; Callaghan et al, 2019; Garvin et al, 2012; Koss et al, 2020) is that post adoption factors, for example, relationship with the adoptive parent, might be more important for cardiac transference within parent‐child dyads than pre‐adoption factors. Each of these possibilities should be considered as potential mechanisms for cardiac transference group differences in future work.…”

Bringing Donors Along on the Journey: A Preliminary Investigation of Organisational Strategies in Transitioning from Residential to Family Care for Children

“…Evidence suggests family models of care provide the best long term outcomes and should be the preferred care model whenever possible (Dozier et al, 2014;Koss et al, 2019;Worku et al, 2018). However with millions of children being cared for in residential settings (Desmond et al, 2020), closing all residential programs would create a vacuum of services that could negatively impact children and youth currently in care .…”

Neural meaning making, prediction, and prefrontal–subcortical development following early adverse caregiving

“…This question has significant implications for interventions targeting mental health problems following crEA exposure. High quality family experiences are important for socio–emotional development of all children, but it may be especially important for children with a history of crEA exposure (e.g., Callaghan et al, 2019b; DePasquale, Raby, Hoye, & Dozier, 2018; Koss, Lawler, & Gunnar, 2020; Vantieghem et al, 2017), and adoptive and foster parent support groups often discuss the notion of needing to parent their children “differently.” Sattler and Font (2018) showed that at-risk children may need especially supportive environments to overcome the risks that they experience, perhaps reflecting the significant challenge of accommodating mPFC–subcortical-based schemas constructed from adverse caregiving experiences. Cues related to caregiving can vary in their potency.…”