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CHICAGO - ABANDONED children in Romania who were removed from orphanages and put in foster care had far better reasoning, language, and other intellectual skills than those who remained, United States researchers said on Thursday.
The study is one of the first scientific investigations of the impact of foster care on reversing the damage of severe neglect to a child's developing brain.
Earlier studies have shown the physical and emotional effects left by the country's notorious communist-era orphanages.
The latest results show children who were moved to foster care enjoyed an average eight to 10 point gain in intelligence quotient or IQ, a measure of aspects of intelligence such as language, reasoning, planning and problem solving.
'Kids who stay in institutions have greatly diminished IQs,' said Professor Charles Nelson of Children's Hospital Boston and a professor of paediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
'Their IQs were in the low- to mid-70s. In the United States, that would meet the criteria for mental retardation,' he said in an telephone interview.
Prof Nelson, whose study was published in the journal Science, said the earlier a child was moved to foster care, the greater the improvement. Children who were placed in foster care before age 2 saw a 12 to 15 point increase in IQ.
'Our findings suggest there may be a sensitive period spanning the first two years of life within which the onset of foster care exerts a maximal effect on cognitive development,' he said in a statement.
The study, funded by the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, began in the capital Bucharest in 2000 at a time when Romania had no foster care system. It included 136 children under 31 months living in six institutions. -- Reuters
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