The Effect of Placement Instability on Adopted Children's Inhibitory Control Abilities and Oppositional Behavior

This study assessed relations among placement instability, inhibitory control, and caregiver-rated child behavior. The sample included 33 adopted children who had experienced placement instability, 42 adopted children who had experienced 1 stable placement, and 27 children never placed in foster car...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inDevelopmental psychology Vol. 43; no. 6; pp. 1415 - 1427
Main Authors Lewis, Erin E, Dozier, Mary, Ackerman, John, Sepulveda-Kozakowski, Sandra
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States American Psychological Association 01.11.2007
Subjects
Adoption
Adoption - psychology
Caregivers - statistics & numerical data
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Child
Child Behavior
Child Behavior Disorders - epidemiology
Child Welfare
Child, Preschool
Emotional Development
Female
Foster Care
Humans
Inhibition
Intelligence
Male
Nuclear Family
Parent-Child Relations
Placement
Risk Factors
Task Analysis
Young Children
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Summary:This study assessed relations among placement instability, inhibitory control, and caregiver-rated child behavior. The sample included 33 adopted children who had experienced placement instability, 42 adopted children who had experienced 1 stable placement, and 27 children never placed in foster care. Five- and 6-year-old children completed the day-night task, which requires children to inhibit a prepotent response, and a control task that presents similar memory demands but does not require inhibition (C. L. Gerstadt, Y. J. Hong, & A. Diamond, 1994). Adopted children who had experienced placement instability performed worse on the inhibition task than did both other groups of children, when the authors controlled for age, verbal intelligence (as measured with the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence--Revised; D. Wechsler, 1989; or the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test--Third Edition; L. M. Dunn & L. M. Dunn, 1997), and control task performance (p[less than]0.01). Children who had experienced placement instability were also rated on the Child Behavior Checklist as more oppositional than other children (p[less than]0.01; T. M. Achenbach & L. A. Rescorla, 2000). Inhibitory control did not mediate the association between placement instability and oppositional behavior (p[greater than]0.05). These results suggest that placement instability may adversely affect the social-emotional development of adopted children.
ISSN:0012-1649
1939-0599
DOI:10.1037/0012-1649.43.6.1415