3-222 - The Persistent, Long-Term Outcomes of Early Psychosocial Deprivation

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The role of early experiences in shaping brain and behavioral development is the subject of much contemporary research. A major study addressing these issues is the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, the only randomized controlled trial of foster care as an alternative to institutional care ever conducted. A baseline assessment was performed on a sample of 136 children, ranging from 6 to 31 months of age, who were living in institutions in Bucharest, Romania. Sixty eight children were then randomized to high quality foster care created and monitored by the investigators, and the other 68 were randomized to care as usual (CAU group). A third sample of never institutionalized children was also recruited and followed. The trial continued until the children were 54 months of age, at which time, those children remaining in foster care had the sponsorship of their foster families change from project supported to government supported. The sample has been followed through the age of 12 years, with a 16 year follow up currently in the works.

The purpose of this symposium is to examine outcomes at age 12 years in the BEIP children, specifically, cognitive outcomes (IQ and assessments of executive functioning, including inhibitory control, working memory, cognitive flexibility and executive attention), brain functioning and anatomy (including EEG, structural MRI, and diffusion tensor imaging) stress reactivity, and psychopathology (including emotional and behavioural disorders, disturbances of attachment and callous unemotional traits). We will also look at the role of mediators and moderators, including timing of placements on outcomes.

Sub Unit

• Biological Processes

Chair

• Charles A. Nelson, Boston Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School

Individual Presentations

• Physiological Reactivity to Stress following Severe Early-Life Deprivation - Presenting Author: Katie McLaughlin, Harvard University; Margaret A. Sheridan, Harvard University

• Consequences of psychosocial deprivation on Cognitive Abilities - Presenting Author: Nathan A Fox, Univ of Maryland; Alisa N. Almas, University of British Columbia

• Psychopathology at 12 Years of Age in the Bucharest Early Intervention Project - Presenting Author: Charles H Zeanah, Tulane Univ School of Medicine

• Early Profound Neglect Impacts Brain Development - Presenting Author: Charles A. Nelson, Boston Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School