Social relationships in children from intercountry adoption

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 Q3 Article history: Received 27 October 2011 Received in revised form 28 January 2012 Accepted 29 January 2012 Available online xxxx

In this study we aim to analyze the social relationships from a sample of 116 internationally adopted children 23 aged 8-11, considering the following factors: relationship with parents, interpersonal relationships, and so-24 cial stress. In comparison with previous researches, we have used the child as the informant. These factors are 25 explored depending of the attachment pattern of the child, the country of origin, sex and age at adoption. The 26 attachment pattern is explored with the semi-structured Friends and Family Interview (FFI;

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Steele and Steele, 27 2006) and the social relationships have been assessed with the Behavioral Assessment System for Children 28 (BASC; Reynolds & Kamphaus, 1992). 29 Results show significant differences in the attachment pattern depending on the countries of origin and the 30 impact of the secure attachment pattern over the interpersonal and parental relationships of the children is 31 highlighted. Research helps us to identify the groups that are at risk in developing a secure attachment 32 pattern and in developing their skills for social relationships.  Conference on Private International Law, 1993); adoption is a childhood 43 protection measure with the objective to provide a family to children 44 whose biological families are not able to care for them. It is a phenom-45 enon that involves 45,000 transnational adoptees every year around 46 the world. In 2004, Spain was the second country in the world in 47 receiving children from other countries, after USA. (Selman, 2009). 48 Research in intercountry adoption has been mostly focused on dif-49 ferences on the psychological adjustment of the adoptees compared 50 with their non-adopted peers, and the results indicate that, although 51 they have adequate development, more emotional and behavioral 52 problems are detected compared with nonadopted children, such 53 as: developmental delays (Beckett et al., 2006;Morison, Ames, & 54 Chisholm, 1995); attachment difficulties (Van den Dries, Juffer,Van 55 IJzendoorn, & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2009); psychiatric disorders in 56 adolescence and adulthood, increased risks for psychiatric hospitaliza-57 tion, suicidal behavior, severe social problems, lower cognitive func-58 tioning, and poorer school performance (Dalen et al., 2008;Lindblad, 59 Hjern, & Vinnerljung, 2003); and internalized and externalized prob-60 lems, with higher incidence among the males (Bimmel,Juffer,Van 61 IJzendoorn, & Bakermans- Kranenburg, 2003;Juffer & Van IJzendoorn, 62 2005; Stams, Juffer, Rispens, & Hoksbergen, 2000). 63 In any adoption process, risk factors interact with protective factors 64 that can mitigate the effects of adverse experiences allowing the child to 65 cope with stress and adversity effectively and emerge stronger from 66 these experiences promoting the children's resilience (Rutter, 1985(Rutter, , 67 1987(Rutter, , 1990Scroggs & Heitfield, 2001;Werner, 1993Werner, , 2000. The term 68 resilience refers to the relative positive psychological adaptation 69 despite suffering risk experiences that would be expected to entail 70 significant consequences (Rutter, 2007).

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There is a lot of research focused on the psychological adjustment 72 of adoptees, although there is few research focused on how the 73 adoptees function in areas such as social adjustment, and educational 74 and professional attainment.

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These areas are the focus of the study of Tieman, van de Ende, and 76 Verhulst (2006) in which, using data from a large adoption and gen-77 eral population cohort, the authors compared the social functioning 78 of 24-to 30-year-old intercountry adoptees with that of same-aged 79 nonadoptees in The Netherlands. Results showed that adoptees, com-80 pared to nonadoptees, were less likely to have intimate relationships, 81 to live with a partner, and to be married (Tieman et al., 2006).

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Another study by Tan (2006) analyzed the social competence 83 (participation and performance in extracurricular activities; quality 84 of social relations; and academic attainment) of 115 girls aged 6-8, 85 adopted from China before they were 2 y.o. by American families 86 and its association with their history of neglect. Results showed the 87 percentage of children who were in the neglected group that felt 88 below the normal range of the Overall Competence scale group was 89 significantly higher than for the comparison group. Children and Youth Services Review xxx (2012) Some studies show that both, domestic and international 91 adoptees, regardless of history of neglect, exhibit poorer social 92 competence (Brodzinsky, 1993;Brodzinsky, Schechter, & Henig, 93 1992;Hodges & Tizard, 1989;Miller et al., 2000;Van IJzendoorn, 94 Juffer, & Klein Poelhuis, 2005;Wierzbicki, 1993 and emotional functioning (Colvert et al., 2008). This fact can point to 106 some other pre-and post adoption factors that may affect the 107 adopted children's social competence, such as pre-natal alcohol 108 exposure or the quality of the relationship with the adoptive family. One of the factors that can mitigate the adverse experiences is a 111 secure attachment pattern of the child with a caregiver (Cassidy & 112 Shaver, 1999;Werner, 2000). According to Van IJzendoorn, Schuengel, and various studies indicate a higher probability of attachment disor-119 ders among adopted children (Chisholm, 1998;Marcovitch et al., 120 1997;Zeanah, 2000). The development of a secure attachment relation-  fections at the moment of adoption; minors from Eastern Europe dis-136 play more neurological symptomatology, higher rates of prenatal 137 exposure to tobacco and to alcohol. The study of Johnson (2000) re-138 ports that more than 50% of children institutionalized in Eastern Eu-139 rope present low birth weight, in many cases they are premature, 140 and some of them have been exposed to alcohol during pregnancy.

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The long-term impact of such exposure and its effects on the fetus, 142 and the prevalence of these problems among the institutionalized mi-143 nors in Eastern Europe is more pronounced (Miller,Chan,Tirella,& 144 Perrin, 2009). In the research of Barcons,Fornieles,and Costas 145 (2011) children from Eastern Europe displayed more difficulties in 146 the interpersonal relationships than children from other countries 147 of origin, such as Asia, Latin-America and Africa, similar results to 148 those also found in other researches (Stams et al., 2000;Verhulst, 149 Althaus, & Versluis-den Bieman, 1990). The age at placement is a factor that some literature suggests that 152 can influence in the appearance of more difficulties in the develop-153 ment of the adopted minors. Those who were over 3 years of age at 154 placement present higher rates of problems because they spent 155 more time in unfavorable conditions for their development, such as 156 institutionalization (Barth,Berry,Yoshikami,Goodfield,& Carson,157 1988; Erich & Leung, 2002), though some studies find few difficulties 158 between the children adopted before the 3 years of age and those 159 adopted before, and find differences only in the attention scales 160 (Barcons et al., 2011).  Mean age of the sample was 8.92 years (SD = 1.08). The mean age 201 at placement of the adopted minors was 30.61 months (SD = 21.94), 202 the minimum value was 1 month and the maximum 103 months, 203 the mean age depending on the country of origin is detailed below.

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The adopted minors were from the following countries of origin:

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• 28% from Asia (n = 33).     The distribution of the attachment pattern classification depending 321 on the country of origin can be found in Table 1.
Results indicate that there are significant differences depending 333 on the sex of the minor (χ 2 = 4.518; p = .034), and on the country 334 of origin (χ 2 = 11.840; p = .008), but no differences are found 335 depending on the age at adoption (χ 2 = 2.571; p = .276).

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Distribution of the attachment pattern depending on the sex of the 337 minor, the country of origin and the age at adoption can be found in 338 Table 2.   The linear regression model for the social stress score can be found 362 in Table 3.  Table 4.
In this model, the attachment pattern appears to be a significant  Table 5.  The third hypothesis was that the children adopted from Eastern Eu-467 ropean countries would display more difficulties in the social relation-

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ships scales compared to the children adopted from other continents.

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In this research, children from Eastern Europe display more difficulties   developing specific programs to improve the social skills of the children 481 adopted at an older age and providing early support to the families and 482 children adopted from Eastern European countries to prevent and 483 benefit their social development.

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There are several limitations in this research and all the results 485 must be interpreted with caution. The first limitation is the incidental 486 sampling, families were recruited through an invitation, and only 487 those who accepted are the final participants of the study. This inci-488 dental sampling contributed to the fact that the groups are not paired 489 in age, sex and country of origin completely, and some countries of 490 origin are more represented than others.

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Another limitation of this study could be represented by the number 492 of observations. The total number from each country of origin was rela-493 tively small (55 for Eastern Europe, 16 for Latin America, 33 for Asia, 13 494 for Africa) making it hard to draw strong conclusions from the data de-495 spite the sample sizes being large enough for statistical inference using 496 a multivariate regression model.

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The third limitation is that results cannot be compared with a non-498 adopted sample and the attachment rates are judged against results 499 from normative samples. It will be useful to include a control sample 500 in a future analysis.