A preliminary study of the cognitive and motor skills acquisition of young international adoptees

Abstract

A better understanding of a child's developmental changes in the months following international adoption is needed. For the present study, an initial developmental assessment was completed within two months of an international adoption and compared with performance on the same measures six months later to explore the initial rate of developmental change. The children (8 boys and 18 girls) were adopted from six countries and ranged in age from 5 to 36 months at Time 1 (mean age = 14.77 months). Nineteen of the children (15 girls and 4 boys) spent the majority of their pre-adoptive life in an institution/orphanage. While roughly 60-70% of children had developmental scores within the range of mild to significant delay at Time 1, this incidence dropped to about 25-40% by Time 2. Generally, children from foster care (with scores within the normal range at Time 1) maintained their developmental trajectory at Time 2. Children from institutional care (with scores within the range of mild to significant delay at Time 1) improved greatly as a group and their mean developmental scores fell within the expected range of scores for their ages at Time 2. Clinical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.