Effects of Privation

Privation is when a child never forms attachment. A study of privation includes the case study of Genie and Czech twins. Genie was a young girl who was kept in isolation due to her father’s belief that she was mentally retarded, however as she was discovered at age 13, it was too late to test this. Because Genie never formed attachment, her level of speech was very low and even now, has not recovered as upon discovery she was kept in the care of many different psychologists and then was restored to her original home and kept under the care of her mother. Another case study which looks at privation is the study of the Czech twins. The Czech twins were kept in an unheated closest and discovered at age 7. Because of their lack of attachment, they were unable to walk or have a grasp of basic speech. Unlike Genie, the twins were fostered in to a loving home and therefore, recovered and now live normal lives.
Another study which investigated privation is Hodges and Tizzard’s natural, longitudinal experiment. They studied 68 children who had all experienced privation due to bad institutional care. Over time, 24 of these children were adopted, 15 were restored to their previous homes, and the others stayed in the same institution. Hodges and Tizzard found that the children were adopted were able to form attachment, and those who were restored and stayed in same institution never formed attachment. Despite this, all children had difficulty forming peer relations.
In addition to this study, is a study done by Rutter. Rutter studied 111 Romanian children who all experienced one of the worst cases of institutional care ever recorded however, when the children that came to the UK and were adopted experienced reversal of the effects of privation such developmental dwarfism and insecure attachment if adopted early enough (usually before 6 months).
A strength of the Genie and Czech twins study is that they are both case studies. Because case studies involve using many