Effects of Cognitive Development in Adopted Children

Effects of Cognitive Development in Adopted Children

Introduction

Although in the United States, only about 2% of children under the age of eighteen are adopted by people outside their family, a large number of these children have been referred to at least some form of psychological treatment and/or special education program. Instances of learning disabilities and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are especially high among adopted children.

A study headed by Ruth, PhD, was performed on fifty adopted teenagers in residential treatment and fifty non-adopted teenagers and their families in 1988. The findings of the study suggested that problems with cognitive development in adopted children were substantially influenced by the adoptive parents' reasons, motivations and attitudes towards adoption. This is especially important during the time in which the child finds out the truth about his parentage. How the adoptive parents react to this, as well as the way in which the child discovers the truth, are both relevant factors in an adopted child's cognitive development.

Cognitive Development in Adopted Children

While almost all children who grow up in an institutional environment experience at least some form of developmental delays, these delays can be rectified through special attention and/or therapy. Experts tend to agree that adopted children are at the greatest risk for developmental and psychological problems when they reach early adolescence, because that is when they are first able to cognitively understand the meaning of adoption. Once a child realizes he has been "given away", an overwhelming sense of rejection can overtake him and disable his ability to reason with the situation. As an adopted child reaches the age of eleven or twelve, he sometimes begins to find the lack of information about his birthparents crippling to his sense of identity.

However the study also stated that there was no common denominator in the mental, emotional and overall developmental disabilities of the surveyed adolescents, and that a variety of elements contributed to the problems being experienced by each individual. It was additionally determined that the development of cognitive weakness did not emerge overnight but was part of a long and complicated process.

Adopted children who have not even neared this phase of their lives yet are often labeled an "at-risk", which is a child who, though currently having no visible problems in development, is at risk of developing learning, emotional, behavioral or physical disabilities in the future. Babies exposed to drugs, abuse, neglect, and those with genetic pre-dispositions to mental illness and physical disabilities are deemed "at-risk" before the adoptive parents even come into the picture.

So before a child even gets adopted, he can already predicted to have difficulties. Add to that the secretiveness surrounding the adoption and the impending identity crises that often follows a revelation of the truth, and you have the ingredients of a much more powerful brew than standard adolescent angst. When a child discovers he is adopted, he may feel like his entire identity has been reconfigured without his consent. In addition, he may feel betrayed by his ...