Digitized Honors Theses (2002-2017)

Date of Award

5-2007

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Degree Name

BS

Faculty Mentor

Teena McGuiness, Ph.D.

Advisor(s)

Cheryl Robinson, Ph.D., Candice Ross, Ph.D.

Abstract

Since 1996, at least 14 children adopted from the former Soviet Union have met violent deaths at the hands of their adoptive parents. No other known reports of adoptee deaths from other source countries exist. Children that spend time inan orphanage usually exhibit devastating set backs due to the adversities in their home countries, as seen in existing literature. However, these children can usually overcome these adversities when adopted into the United States and enter into the loving homes of adoptive parents. Many speculate that the deaths were due to the children's behavior problems. Problem behavior has been studied in adopted children from many countries, but there has not been a study to focus solely on the children adopted from the former Soviet Union. This study is a third round assessment that looked at factors of an adolescent's life and how they related to problem behavior from a cohort of children adopted from the former Soviet Union. A stepwise multiple regression was performed to evaluate the impact of family environment on the outcome variable of problem behavior. This study specifically looked at three subscales of family environment: cohesion, conflict, and expressiveness. Pre-adoptive risk factors such as low birth weight and time spent in an orphanage were also entered into the stepwise multiple regression analysis. The results showed that a lower birth weight resulted in a higher problem behavior score. Also, family cohesion was statistically significant in that higher levels of cohesiveness contributed to a reduction in problem behavior. In conclusion, family environment became more important over time as compared to the risk factor of birth weight because enriched environments allowed substantial adaptive change to occur. Parents need pre-adoptive education on potential and often unknown risks of children who have resided in orphanages, as well as access to post-adoption support groups.

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