In the last ten years Americans have opened their homes to more children internationally than in any previous decade. As a result of this growth in the rate of this unique type of adoption, there has been an increasing interest by families and researchers alike (sometimes they are one in the same) to seek out the variables of International adoption. Research foundations and Universities have finally begun to collect significant data and publish their findings. The clinical studies and research results found below represent the most recent and reputable information available. The full version of these reports and studies are also available in our Adoption Library.
“Starting over: International Adoption as a Natural Experiment in Language Development” This study involves the sampling of data from 14 preschoolers taken 3-18 months after being adopted from China. They set out to find if preschool aged children learn words and grammer in the same order as infants. They found that the order is very similar in both age groups. They also sought to find out if they learn at the same pace. The data suggests that older children are faster learners than infants. On average the preschoolers learned the same number of words during their first three months in the U.S. as an infant would between the 12-24 months of age. Read more.
A revised version of this study is about to be published in Psychological Science (January 2007 issue) and has a larger sample size (n=27).
The Harvard Department of Psychology has also written an easier to read report on the implications of this study for families and clinicians. It was published in Seminars in Speech and Language in 2005. Read it..
Contact Information: Jesse Snedeker 1136 WJH, 33 Kirkland St. Cambridge MA, 02138 Phone: (617) 495-3873 Email: snedeker@wjh.harvard.edu
"Adopting an Institutionalized Child: What are the Risks?" This study relates to International adoption in that it attempts to determine the short and long-term health of children that have been institutionalized with regards to body and mind development. His conclusions touch home because everyone wants to know will my baby be healthy when I get her or not. What are my chances? Read more.
Dr. Johnson’s report addresses the following conclusions from varies research surveys:
Contact Information: Dana Johnson, MD, PhD International Adoption Clinic The University of Minnesota Hospital and Clinic Box 211 420 Delaware Street SE Minneapolis, MN 55455 Phone: (612) 626 2928
“International Adoption Trends and Issues” This brief report illustrates the increasing number of International adoptions in the America since 1989. It also compares the characteristics of children adopted internationally with children adopted from the American child welfare system. Read More.
Contact Information: National Adoption Information Clearinghouse Children's Bureau/ACYF 1250 Maryland Avenue, SW Eighth Floor Washington, DC 20024 Phone: 703.352.3488 or 888.251.0075 Fax: 703.385.3206 Email: NAIC@icfcaliber.com
“How Chinese People Feel about Americans Adopting Chinese Children” This article is from a scholarly paper presented on March 3, 2001 at the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society. Richard Tessler is a sociologist at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and Yu Ning is a sociologist at Anhui Agricultural University in the People’s Republic of China. A survey was conducted in China to examine the reactions of people to the adoption of orphaned Chinese children by foreigners. “It is one thing for Chinese to adopt from strangers, but it is another thing for strangers to adopt from Chinese.” This article explores what adoption means to people of the rural countryside and in the general population. They administered this questionnaire throughout the Anhui Province.
The survey explores the following:
Results: Out of 244 total surveyed Chinese individuals,
Results: Out of the 244, 180 of the surveyed lived in the rural countryside and were non-students. Their results are as follows:
The most popular reasons why they approve:
The most popular reasons why they disapprove (most popular statement by both students and non-students:
Since as many as 37% of the total sample of the family members in the countryside first learned about foreign adoption from the student-investigator, many of the expressions of approval or disapproval constitute reactions more than they do pre-existing attitudes. Read more.
Contact Information: RTralle@hotmail.com
“Infant Abandonment and Adoption in China” From the journal of Population and Development Review, Vol. 24, 1998. This is an older report that is interesting because it discusses the statistical conditions of abandonment and adoption in China in the late 80’s and 90’s. Needless to say, it gives a pretty grim picture of how certain cultural boundaries influenced the abandonment/abortion of girls and discouraged domestic adoption despite overcrowding orphanages. This shows a good scope of what has happened just in the last decade. Read more.
Contact Information: Email: kjohnson@hampshire.edu
“The 2002 National Adoption Attitudes Survey” This survey was conducted in order to compare recent views of Americans on adoption with a benchmark survey on views done in 1997. Among many interesting conclusions, they found mainly that Americans today increasingly view adopted children no differently than children raised by biological parents. Read more.
Some statistics found are as follows:
Contact Information: The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute 525 Broadway, 6th floor New York, NY 10012 Phone: 212.925-4089 Fax: 775.796.6592 E-mail: info@adoptioninstitute.org The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption Phone: 1-800-ASK-DTFA (1-800-275-3832) Fax: 614-766-3871. E-mail: adoption@wendys.com.
“International Adoption: Current Status and Future Prospects” This article written by Elizabeth Bartholet, professor at Harvard Law School and author of Family Bonds: Adoption and the Politics of Parenting, discusses the legal and ethical aspects of International Adoption.
Read more: http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/bartholet/cv_reg.php
Contact information: Phone: (617) 495-3128 Fax: (617) 496-4947 E-mail: ebarthol@law.harvard.edu
If you would like to contribute a research report or study to this site please contact Lacee Steigerwald at lacee@gwca.org
