| Children who are living in
orphanages may be delayed just because they have been living in an
institutionalized setting and their nutrition has been sub-optimal.
Adoption professionals guess that for every 3 months a child resides in
an orphanage there may be a loss of one month of development. This is
probably an over-simplification of the effect of orphanage life on the
development of a child, but it is a useful guide. Unfortunately,
most of the children in orphanages do not vocalize. They have little
one-on-one connection with their caretakers. The caretakers usually do
not speak to the children as they change their clothes or feed the
child. Receptive language in toddlers is sometimes seen when a
child is asked to do simple tasks and the child is observed performing
those tasks. This can be inferred from the video without an
understanding of the language used by the orphanage staff. If a person
speaking the language of the country is available to translate the
conversation of the orphanage staff speaking on the video, much can be
learned about the child.
Children often have never seen the toy that
they are offered during the video and their lack of familiarity is not a
measure of intellect. Filming children with other children is
enlightening; how they interact gives us information about the child's
ability to socialize. This is especially valuable for older children,
but not useful for toddlers who normally only exhibit parallel play. How
a child interacts with the caretaker can reveal the child's comfort with
an intimate relationship. It can tell us a lot about the style of social
interaction between children and staff. This really helps parents
understand how difficult life is in this setting and can explain why a
child appears withdrawn and without much range of emotional response.
Eye contact is especially important to note on the video. If a child
averts gaze, looks away and down, this may mean that the child is
feeling shy and afraid of the video process. If there is a lot of
rocking and gaze aversion, this may reveal withdrawn and depressed
feelings. Attachment disorder cannot be diagnosed
from a video. Lots of children are depressed and bored in
orphanages. Rocking, head-banging, and other self-stimulatory behaviors
are more the norm in an orphanage and these behaviors disappear fairly
quickly after adoption. |
