Prevalence of Adoptees Among Special Education Populations

Brodzinsky, David M.; Steiger, Cynthia

doi:10.1177/002221949102400807

Cited by 36 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Though adopted children are generally overrepresented in special education classes and show lowered general school adjustment (Brodzinsky & Steiger, 1991 ;Verhulst et al, 1990 ;Wierzbicki, 1993), some of our discrepant findings may be explained by differences in the age at placement (Tizard, 1991). In a Dutch study by Hoksbergen, Juffer, and Waardenburg (1987), a group of mostly infant-placed 9-year-old internationally adopted children were shown to have favorable school adjustment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 66%

The Development and Adjustment of 7‐year‐old Children Adopted in Infancy

Stams

Juffer

Rispens

et al. 2000

Child Psychology Psychiatry

116

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The present study (N l 159) provides evidence of an increased risk for behavior problems of infant-placed 7-year-old internationally, transracially adopted children in the Netherlands. However, parents reported more behavior problems for adopted boys than for adopted girls. Notably, about 30 % of the adopted children were classified as clinical on the CBCL scale for total problems, which is a much larger percentage than the 10 % found in the normative population. It was suggested that these results could be explained by the operation of multiple risk factors before and after adoption placement, e.g. the child's genetic disposition, pre-natal and pre-adoption care, or the child's cognitive understanding of adoption in middle childhood. Also, results suggest that maternal sensitive responsiveness in adoptive families declines in the transition from early to middle childhood. In contrast to the home setting, the adopted children showed favorable behavioral and socioemotional adjustment at school, while their academic achievement and intelligence were in the normal range or above average. In particular Korean children had high IQs : 31 % of these children obtained an intelligence score above 120. It was suggested that adoptive parents seem to offer their children sufficient or even more than average cognitive stimulation. Furthermore, adopted girls scored higher in optimal ego-control, social competence, and peer group popularity than nonadopted girls from the general population : 30 % of the adopted girls were rated as popular by their classmates, which compares favorably to the 13 % found in the general school population.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 66%

The Development and Adjustment of 7‐year‐old Children Adopted in Infancy

Stams

Juffer

Rispens

et al. 2000

Child Psychology Psychiatry

116

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“…adopted individuals are more likely than biological, non-adopted children to seek mental health services as adolescents and adults (e.g., Mech, 1973;Zill, 1985) and Brodzinsky and Steiger (1991) reported that adopted children tended to be overrepresented in special education populations. A meta-analysis emphasizing the psychological difficulties for children and families associated with adoption was written by Wierzbicki (1993).…”

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confidence: 99%

Maternal secure-base scripts and children’s attachment security in an adopted sample

Veríssimo

Salvaterra

2006

Attachment & Human Development

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Studies of families with adopted children are of special interest to attachment theorists because they afford opportunities to probe assumptions of attachment theory with regard to the developmental timing of interactions necessary to form primary attachments and also with regard to effects of shared genes on child attachment quality. In Bowlby's model, attachment-relevant behaviors and interactions are observable from the moment of birth, but for adoptive families, these interactions cannot begin until the child enters the family, sometimes several months or even years post-partum. Furthermore, because adoptive parents and adopted children do not usually share genes by common descent, any correspondence between attachment representations of the parent and secure base behavior of the child must arise as a consequence of dyadic interaction histories. The objectives of this study were to evaluate whether the child's age at the time of adoption or at the time of attachment assessment predicted child attachment security in adoptive families and also whether the adoptive mother's internal attachment representation predicted the child's attachment security. The participants were 106 mother -child dyads selected from the 406 adoptions carried out through the Lisbon Department of Adoption Services over a period of 3 years. The Attachment Behavior Q-Set (AQS; Waters, 1995) was used to assess secure base behavior and an attachment script representation task was used to assess the maternal attachment representations. Neither child's age at the time of adoption, nor age of the child at assessment significantly predicted the AQS security score; however, scores reflecting the presence and quality of maternal secure base scripts did predict AQS security. These findings support the notion that the transmission of attachment security across generations involves mutual exchanges and learning by the child and that the exchanges leading to secure attachment need not begin at birth. These results complement the findings and conceptual arguments offered by Bowlby and Ainsworth concerning the critical influence of maternal representations of attachment to the quality of attachment security in children.

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“…There is evidence that adopted children tend to show behavior problems and difficulty to cope with stress and depression Brodzinsky, 2002, 1994), there are also likely repercussions on the construction of close human relationships and social competence (Brodzinsky, et al 1984). Furthermore, there have been studies about the academic performance of adopted children which suggest that adopted children are overrepresented in school groups in need of support due to the presence of learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder and emotional imbalances (Silver, 1989;Deutsch et al, 1982 andSteiger, 1991).…”

Section: The Transformational Potential Of Higher Education Inclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Transformational Potential of Higher Education Inclusion

Olivieri¹,

Humberto²

2017

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Prevalence of Adoptees Among Special Education Populations

Cited by 36 publications

References 28 publications

The Development and Adjustment of 7‐year‐old Children Adopted in Infancy

The Development and Adjustment of 7‐year‐old Children Adopted in Infancy

Maternal secure-base scripts and children’s attachment security in an adopted sample

The Transformational Potential of Higher Education Inclusion

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