Project to trace the emotional toll of severe child neglect

With the help of Wisconsin families who have adopted East European children, a university study hopes to deepen understanding of the emotional and physical aftershocks from early-childhood neglect.

The project began this year when Seth Pollak, a UW–Madison psychologist who studies child abuse, was approached by members of the Wisconsin chapter of Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption, which represents more than 200 families and 300 children. The parents read news reports about Pollak’s work on child abuse and brain development and asked whether his work could be applied toward the unique problems their children are facing.

Pollak

Many of the thousands of U.S. children adopted in the last decade from eastern Europe, especially Romania, came from often deprived conditions in state-run orphanages. Often abandoned due to poverty, the children were essentially warehoused in institutions with little contact with caregivers. Some children were even mechanically fed, had no toys to stimulate their development, and engaged in self-stimulating behaviors like incessant rocking.

There was international outcry when these conditions were first exposed in the early 1990s, after the fall of the Ceausescu regime in Romania.

Although the worst conditions existed there, an epidemic of orphaned children existed across the region. Since then, thousands of parents from industrialized countries flocked to eastern Europe to adopt kids.

But even after years in stable homes, the families are finding that the early trauma has influenced their children in insidious ways, altering the trajectory of their health and emotional development.

Pollak has met with dozens of adoptive parents, primarily from the Milwaukee area, to hear about the scope of their concerns. Many children in these families have been through evaluations for speech, language and other learning delays, and issues such as sensory regulation and attachment.

“The parents told me that they believe these concerns address part, but not all, of their children’s problems,” he says. “These children are facing pervasive developmental health problems, even after living with their adoptive families for more than two years.”

Other symptoms defy traditional categories. Some children are underweight, have trouble sleeping at night, and have trouble playing with children their own age, Pollak says.

Pollak’s study, which was given financial support by the Graduate School, will try to gather specific biological information on how the children are coping with stress. “The stress of social life is attracting so much of their resources that other areas are not progressing as much as they should. It may be why they’re having cascading problems in school and with peers,” he says.

Pollak has pulled together a diverse group of researchers for the study, which will integrate biological data with interviews and questionnaires. For example, fellow psychologist Christopher Coe will gather saliva samples to test for levels of the stress-related hormone cortisol, which is produced by the adrenal gland. High levels of cortisol can indicate an extreme body response to stress.

Pollak’s research methods involve measuring brain-wave activity in response to certain emotional stimuli, such as pictures of sad, happy and angry faces. It can tell them whether children act strongly toward different emotions or, conversely, do not differentiate between feelings.

Other members of the study team include psychologist Hill Goldsmith, who studies children at risk of anxiety disorders; Julia Evans, a professor of communication disorders who studies language impairment, and pediatrics professor Lewis Leavitt, an expert on children who grew up in war zones, who will help review records.

Jennifer Fontanini, vice chair of the Wisconsin chapter of the adoptive parents organization, says there is great enthusiasm for this project, which now has more than 50 families signed up to participate. “Many parents feel like they’ve made improvements with their children to a degree, but there’s still something that we can’t put our finger on,” she says.

Many group members adopted children three to four years ago, and they become aware of developmental problems as the children reach school age. It’s a stressful time for the families, Fontanini says.

Pollak emphasizes that his study is exploratory and is unlikely to produce quick answers for parents. But filling the void of objective data on these children is a first step toward interventions that work.

“How do you come up with a treatment when you’re not exactly sure what the problem is?” Pollak asks. “Being more specific about the problems children are experiencing is a solid first step.”

Pollak says there is evidence that major traumas like this can be overcome. A recent study of British children from Romanian orphanages found that 70 percent of the kids who were physically and mentally delayed caught up with their peers after four years. For kids who didn’t catch up, he says, the common thread appeared to be the severity of emotional deprivation.