Maternal Deprivation In Infancy Essay

Evaluate evidence that maternal deprivation in infancy has long-term effect on human social and emotional development

Maternal deprivation describes the loss of something, like for instance it can be the loss of mother or other attachment figure. A more long term or even permanent loss is implied. The children which are deprived of their mothers without adequate substitute, their development become retarded in the course of the first two months of separation. Protest is when the child on first few hours noticed that a mother is separated from the child, he starts to get distressed and anxious. The child will start to despair after couple of days and loss interest in his surroundings; become withdrawn, increasingly unapproachable, weepy,

Rutter disagree with Bowlby‘s findings, he claimed that Bowbly exaggerated the idea of maternal deprivation, Rutter claimed there are difference between these two subjects therefore deprivation is when attachment is broken, loss of mother due death and privation is when a child has never had an attachment to its mother or caregiver. Rutter claimed that the effects of privation are more likely to be serious than the effects of deprivation. Evidence comes from the case studies of children who have suffered difficult conditions and cruel treatment. The case of Genie, she was discovered when she was 13 years old, was isolated from the society. She suffered extreme cruelty from her parents, and Genie has never had an attachment to her mother or another caregiver. She was physically underdeveloped could not speak. The psychologists and linguistics were interested to learn more about Genie and how they can assist Genie to learn to live a normal life; after a lot of help she later learned some language but her social and intellectual skills never seemed to fully develop. Genie was on her

This gave a baseline measure at the start of the study. The boys had each other and could have formed attachments with each another, which might have been enough. They would have formed an attachment to their aunt and perhaps in the institution, so perhaps it was deprivation of attachment than privation. The case studies show that recovery from privation is possible. However, we cannot ever be sure why the twins recovered more than Genie. The children did not just suffer privation, they also had little social and intellectual stimulation and were treated cruelly .All of these factors may have affected development and there are problems generalising the findings because they only focus on individual cases. These case studies show mixed results how much children can recover from privation one might thing genies study shows that the effects can be irreversible and whist twin’s study provides evidence of reversibility. More controlled, scientific evidence is needed but it would be ethically wrong to put children in situations of privation to see what might happen. Privation of attachment s early in life will damage a child’s development, although how much it is damaged depends on several factors such age. Children can recover to some of the effects of privation may be