The Bucharest Early Intervention Project

Brain Function, Cognitive Ability, General, Executive Function, Health Behavior, Psychiatric and/or Mood Disorders, Risk-Taking, Social Cognition

Romania,, children,, foster care,, institutionalization,, brain function,, MRI,, attachment,, language,, growth,, Intelligence Quotient (IQ),, psychiatric symptomatology, early intervention

The purpose of this study is to determine the long term effects of early intervention (placement into foster care) on physical, cognitive, social and brain development and psychiatric symptomatology in previously institutionalized children.

The Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP) was a randomized controlled trial of foster care as an intervention for children abandoned at or around the time of birth and placed in one of six institutions for young children in Bucharest, Romania (Zeanah et al., 2003). The PI (Nelson) and Co-PIs (Zeanah and Fox) conducted this study beginning in the fall of 2000 from baseline assessments and implementation of the intervention in the spring of 2001. The BEIP began with comprehensive assessments of 136 institutionalized children and their caregiving environments prior to randomization. Half the children were randomly assigned to high-quality foster care and the other half to remain in institutional care. The average age at foster care placement was 22 months (range=6-31 months). All children were initially seen prior to randomization and again for follow-up assessments at 30 months, 42 months 54 months, 8 years, 12 year and 16 years of age. The development of children in foster care was compared to the development of children in institutions and to a group of never institutionalized children (community controls). These children, now young adults are being assessed at age 21 years.

Romania