漢譯英

孤兒院不利于兒童智力發展

心理學家一直認為，在孤兒院這種機構長大的孩子，智力的發展會受到影響，但是他們從未找到直接的證據來證明這一點。現在，他們找到了。在羅馬尼亞，進行了一項很特別的實驗，歷經數年，對家庭領養和機構收養兩種方式對孩子智力的影響進行了比較研究。

該研究發現，被領養的稚童，4歲時平均智商明顯高于在孤兒院呆了4年的同齡兒童，而且差距很大——高達8點。研究還表明，孩子越早被家庭領養，智商越高，而2歲后才從孤兒院進入家庭的，雖然情況因人而異，但一般而言，智力發展不大。但是，這兩組兒童的智商均明顯低于由親生父母撫養的一個對照組。

有些發展心理學家對此項研究及其贊助人提出了尖銳的批評，認為他們研究的問題，答案是不言自明的。但以前對孤兒院收養和家庭領養的對比實驗本身都存在嚴重缺陷，主要在于，誰也不知道那些進孤兒院的孩子與進家庭的孩子是否有什么不為人知的差異。老師稱，通過這次新的研究，人們將不再懷疑機構收養的弊端，——而且能促使人們趕緊在法律允許的國家領養孩子。

“多數人憑直覺就知道，生活在家庭里比生活在孤兒院好，”威斯康辛大學一位沒有參加過此項研究的心理學家說道。“但其他國家的政府并不喜歡別人教他們如何根據直覺處理政策問題。”“這研究重要性在于，”他認為，“它給出了客觀數據，說明如果你同意跨國領養，那么就請加快進度，讓孩子們快些進入家庭。”近年，許多國家，包括羅馬尼亞，禁止或嚴格限制美國家庭領養當地兒童。而在其他國家，領養手續可以拖上好幾個月。2006年，美國人共從海外領養了20679名兒童，其中超過一半來自中國、危地馬拉和俄羅斯。

90年代末，研究人員接觸過羅馬尼亞官員，希望在那里進行些研究。當時羅馬尼亞正在設法改善孤兒院的環境。90年代早期用條件極差的倉庫收容棄兒的做法，曾讓羅馬尼亞的孤兒院臭名遠揚。研究人員獲準開始追蹤觀察136個棄嬰。他們對孩子做成長測試，然后隨機抽取，有些送往布加勒斯特的六大孤兒院收養，有些則送往經過仔細篩選的領養家庭。能為孩子提供“高質量的照料服務”。

在54個月后進行的智商測試中，被家庭領養的孩子平均智商為81，而繼續留在孤兒院的孩子則為73。研究者發現，最早被家庭領養的孩子智力成長幅度最大。而對照組中在親生家庭成長的同齡兒童，平均智商達到109。“全世界不同的國家、以及同一國家不同的機構和環境，都千差萬別，”“但我想從這些研究結果中可以把它們分為許多不同的種類，包括收養機構、暴力家庭，或者不合適的領養家庭。”

在設定研究計劃時，研究人員提出了一個關于把孩子關到孤兒院的倫理問題，這種做法被疑對孩子有害。“如果政府考慮用其他方案替代孤兒院收容制度，那說明政府已經認定替代方案優于現行制度。”研究者們這樣寫道。

老師認為，機構收容中的任何共同因素都可能有延緩或阻礙智力發展的作用，包括嚴厲的控制和對孩子個人習慣和需求差異的漠視。最糟糕的是，孩子們和護理員接觸非常有限。

在一些孤兒院里，一位護理員要同時照顧20多個孩子。這些證據說明，孩子們需要及時的關愛，需要大人理解他們獨特的需求，知道他們何時饑餓何時痛苦，待他們足夠大了，會放手讓他們四處亂爬亂摸，并確保他們的安全。

參考譯文

Orphanages Stunt Mental Growth By BENEDICT CAREY

Psychologists have long believed that growing up in an institution like an orphanage stunts children's mental development but have never had direct evidence to back it up. Now they do, from an extraordinary years-long experiment in Romania that compared the effects of foster care with those of institutional child-rearing.

The study found that toddlers placed in foster families developed significantly higher I. Q.'s by age , on average, than peers who spent those years in an orphanage. The difference was large - eight points - and the study found that the earlier children joined a foster family, the better they did. Children who moved from institutional care to families after age made few gains on average, though the experience varied from child to child. Both groups, however, had significantly lower I. Q.'s than a comparison group of children raised by their biological families.

Some developmental psychologists had sharply criticized the study and its sponsor for researching a question whose answer seemed obvious. But previous attempts to compare institutional and foster care suffered from serious flaws, mainly because no one knew whether children who landed in orphanages were different in unknown ways from those in foster care.

Experts said the new study should put to rest any doubts about the harmful effects of Institutionalization _ and might help speed up adoptions from countries that still allow them. " Most of us take it as almost intuitive that being in a family is better for humans than being in an orphanage," said a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, who was not involved in the research. "But other governments don't like to be told how to handle policy issues based on intuition." "What makes this study important," he went on, "is that it gives objective data to say that if you're going to allow international adoptions, then it's a good idea to speed things up and get kids into families quickly. In recent years many countries, including Romania, have banned or sharply restricted American families from adopting local children. In other countries, adoption procedures can drag on for many months. In 2006, Americans adopted 20,679 children from abroad, more than half of them from China, Guatemala and Russia.

The researchers approached Romanian officials in the late 1990s about conducting the study.

The country had been working to improve conditions at its orphanages, which became infamous in the early 1990s as Dickensian warehouses for abandoned children. After gaining clearance from the government, the researchers began to track 136 children who had been abandoned at birth.

They administered developmental tests to the children, and then randomly assigned them to continue at one of Bucharest's six large orphanages, or join an adoptive family. The foster families were carefully screened and provided "very high-quality care".

On I. Q. tests taken at 54, months, the foster children scored an average of 81, compared to 73 among the children who continued in an institution .The children who moved into foster care at the youngest ages tended to show the most improvement, the researchers found. The comparison group of youngsters who grew up in their biological families had an average I. Q. of 109 at the same age. "Institutions and environments vary enormously across the world and within countries," "but I think these findings generalize to many situations, from kids in institutions to those in abusive households and even bad foster care arrangements." In setting up the study, the researchers directly addressed the ethical issue of assign/ng children to institutional care, which was suspected to be harmful. "If a government is to consider alternatives to institutional care for abandoned children, it must know how the alternative compares to the standard care it provides." they wrote.

Any number of factors common to institutions could work to delay or blunt intellectual development, experts say: the regimentation, the indifference to individual differences in children's habits and needs; and most of all, the limited access to caregivers, who in some institutions can be responsible for more than 20 children at a time. The evidence seems to say that for humans, kids need a lot of responsive care giving, an adult who recognizes their distinct cry, knows when they're hungry or in pain, and gives them the opportunity to crawl around and handle different things, safely, when they're ready.