Multilevel study of attachment, behavioral problems and social cognition in adolescents adopted during childhood with earlysocial deprivationbackground

Abstract

The experienced of early social deprivation has an impact at different levels of the cognitive, behavioral and physical development of adolescents. And some studies showed that a later age of adoption increases the risks of the impact on the child´s development. These impacts sometimes continue during the adolescence and into adulthood. However, the researchers consider adolescence as a critical period especially for adopted adolescents. In Chile little is known about development of adopted adolescents since no control policies exist after adoption. The current work assessed, from a multilevel approach, late adopted adolescents with a history of early deprivation compared with teenagers who grew up in their biological families. The present research has two levels of analysis. The first level responds to the reports of the adolescents and parents about the adolescent‟s behavior. At this level, the age at adoption, a scale of behavioral problems and the adolescent‟s attachment style were taken into consideration. The second level responds to an experimental study in social cognition with Event Related Potential (ERPs) studies. The first experiment assesses the emotion processing, and considered attachment style. And the second experiment evaluated moral sensitivity. The findings showed that early social deprivation has an impact on the emotional, behavioral and neurophysiological development of the adolescent. Adopted adolescents showed more insecure attachment compared non-adopted adolescents. Besides, did not find differences in behavioral problems compared with their peers. Later age of adoption increased the risk for “social problems” and “insecure attachment”. Furthermore, the results suggest that the impact of early deprivation produces a delay in neurodevelopmental maturation, and this has an impact on the behavioral level as well as on the development of moral cognition. The study highlights the importance of post-adoption processes for timely intervention and support during the different periods of development. Also, the relevance to assess the neurodevelopment and detect early presence of problems in adopted children and adolescents.