Infant Adoption in England: A Longitudinal Account of Social and Cognitive Progress

Abstract

In many ways, within-country infant adoptions are becoming a thing of the past. However, several factors arising from this study of social and cognitive progress in children adopted as babies may be equally salient for older-placed children, especially in middle childhood and early adolescence. From a sample of 52 children in the same number of families, placed before the age of six months, Jenny Castle, Celia Beckett, Christine Groothues and the English and Romanian Adoptees (ERA) study team looked at outcomes such as adoptive parents' marital and emotional adjustment, evaluation of the adoption and children's cognitive attain-ment in two phases — at age four and six years. Overall, the study confirmed earlier research to suggest that infant adoptions tend to lead to very good social and intellectual progress in children, as well as high parental satisfaction.