2:43 p.m., July 20, 2009----Children who live in orphanages or other institutions before international adoption often have problems paying attention, maintaining self control and developing bonds of trust with their new families, all of which require intervention in order to avoid major behavioral problems as they grow up, according to Mary Dozier, Amy E. du Pont Chair of Child Development at the University of Delaware.

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Dozier, who is conducting a five-year study of the effectiveness of intervention, said her 15-year study of development of young children in foster care and children who are maltreated but remain with birth parents showed that children often adapt in ways that help them cope, but those adaptations can have problematic consequences for relationships.

"We became interested in children who are adopted following institutional care because they have typically experienced more extreme conditions than children in foster care and in maltreating birth homes," Dozier said. "The age at which children are being adopted is becoming later and children have adapted in ways that make it harder for them to change.”

Dozier said infants and toddlers are “designed” to have primary caregivers that they can count on, and the failure of the caregiving system is a serious threat to the child's well-being.

These children have usually not had a primary caregiver -- they have not had the opportunity to form an attachment to a caregiver and have not had any one person to be engaged in their social, emotional, cognitive and physical development. The task for the adopting parents is therefore especially challenging, Dozier said.

Amy Lynch, an occupational therapy coordinator at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia who earned a doctorate in biomechanics and movement studies at the University of Delaware this year, said her recent adoption of an 18-month-old boy, Aslan, from Russia, gave her first-hand experience of the challenges of international adoption.

"Adoption is a big life stress and interventions are a way to help proactively," said Lynch, who is working with Dozier for her post-doctoral studies. "From a parent's perspective I can clearly see what families face. I am very excited about the study. This is needed and I am looking forward to getting the outcomes, so we can distribute them and let families know."

Lynch said interventions would help the parents and the child develop a relationship that is shaped around the child and the parents rather that only what they expected it to be.

"Many families go into adoption expecting a lot of things out of children and it leads to a sort of disconnection between what they expect and what they experience," Lynch said. "A lot of families really struggle with their 18-month-old child who does not seem to love the parents the way they expected."

Dozier, whose previous studies have included designing training programs that help foster parents and birth parents repair the damage, said the proposed intervention, Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up for Children Adopted Internationally (ABC-I), is a 10 session parent training program designed to enhance children's ability to regulate attention, behavior and physiology, and develop secure, organized attachments to their parents.

The study, funded by a five-year $3.5 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, will examine the effectiveness of the intervention. About 220 young children from Central New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland who have lived in institutional care prior to adoption will be enrolled in the study.

The children's parents will be provided with one of two forms of intervention, which are focused on either boosting motor and cognitive development or promoting biobehavioral modification by helping parents become more sensitive to children's cues, especially when children are distressed.

Children will be assessed in various contexts annually until they are 4 years old. Children who receive successful intervention are expected to show fewer problems with inattention, better inhibitory control, more secure attachments, more normative patterns of hormone production and lower incidence of diagnosed behavior disorders.

Lynch said that behavioral, attention and attachment problems that go unchecked are very likely to lead to bigger problems as the child grows up and during their adulthood. "There is a huge risk for everything, from juvenile delinquency to adult criminal behavior," Lynch said.

Dozier said the study also needs children between 6-18 months who have been adopted in the U.S. and live near Newark, Del.

Families who would like to be part of the study can contact Dozier at [mdozier@udel.edu].

Dozier is a professor in UD's Department of Psychology. She received a doctorate in clinical psychology from Duke University in 1983 and was on the faculty at Trinity University before coming to the University of Delaware in 1993.

Article by Martin Mbugua
Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson