Severe malnourishment and other forms of deprivation for sustained periods during a child’s early years may have lasting consequences on his or her intellectual development in later childhood, results of a new study show.

Children who experienced such deprivation for more than 6 months after birth had lower IQ scores at age 11 years, despite their having been removed from the deprived environment for seven years or longer, reports a team of researchers from the UK and the USA.

“There are long lasting effects from early deprivation on children’s ability even though children have been adopted into caring, nurturing families,” study co-author Dr. Celia M. Beckett, of King’s College, in London, UK, told Reuters Health.

The findings are based on assessments of 131 Romanian children who lived in extremely deprived conditions in state institutions until the fall of the Ceausescu regime during the late 1980’s, after which they were adopted into families living in the United Kingdom and Canada.

These children, who were adopted before 6 months of age, between 6 and 24 months of age, or between 24 and 43 months, were compared with 50 children who were born in the UK and adopted there by 6 months of age.

Previously published studies on the Romanian children, who usually entered the institutions as young babies, showed that those adopted before 6 months old were cognitively similar to the UK children, while those adopted at later ages had lower IQ scores. Yet, most children adopted at later ages reportedly experienced intellectual “catch-up” by age 4 or 6. Beckett and her team investigated whether this catch-up was maintained at age 11.

They found that children with the lowest IQ scores at age 6, those adopted at the oldest ages, exhibited even further “catch-up” between the ages of 6 and 11.

“The children who have been affected the worse continue to make progress over time, catching up a little with those who had not been so badly affected,” Beckett explained.

Still, they, as well as other children adopted at later ages, continued to exhibit significant intellectual impairment at 11 years old, Beckett and her co-authors report in the journal Child Development.

“The window of opportunity for intellectual gains post-adoptions between 6 and 11 seems wider than appeared likely at 6, but there are clear limits, as shown by the relative persistence in cognitive impairment,” they write.

Such detrimental effects of institutional deprivation were evident only for children who lived in the institutions beyond 6 months of age, however. There was “no measurable effect” or consequences of institutional deprivation among those who lived in the institutions for shorter periods, the researchers note.

In particular, those over 6 months old by the time they were adopted had IQ scores that were 15 points lower than children adopted at earlier ages. IQ scores were similar among children adopted at older ages, however, regardless of their age at adoption, up to 42 months.

According to Beckett, “more than six months in a very depriving environment is a risk factor for later development, but the risks are not increased when the deprivation lasts for more than 2 years.”

In other findings, differences in the children’s mental abilities at 11 years old, or changes in their cognitive abilities between 6 and 11 years old, were not associated with differences in their respective adoptive families, the researchers note.

However, the adoptive families did appear to have an early effect on the children’s cognition, as evidenced by the “massive catch-up” the children experienced within two years after their adoption, the report indicates.

“The implications are that adopting families need to be aware that the effects of early deprivation on later outcomes are persistent and this is especially so if the child has lived in an institution for more than six months,” Beckett told Reuters Health. “Secondly, the adopted children will continue to benefit from a nurturing environment and continue to make progress and modest catch-up long after placement.”

Further, she added, “teachers need to be aware of the long term effect of early deprivation and the implications for children’s educational needs.

SOURCE: Child Development, May/June 2006.