Pollak comments on importance of new study cited in New York Times

Posted December 26, 2007

A new study investigating the link between institutional care and lowered IQ was highlighted in the December 21, 2007 edition of the New York Times. The study, conducted by investigators from Harvard and Children's Hospital of Boston, compared the development of abandoned Romanian children who were placed in orphanages versus those placed with families through foster care. Researchers found that the sooner children were placed with families the better they did on IQ tests. While there has been some criticism that the study’s results may seem obvious, Seth Pollak, PhD, commented on the importance of the findings, saying, "...it gives objective data to say that if you’re going to allow international adoptions, then it’s a good idea to speed things up and get kids into families quickly.”

Dr. Pollak is the director of the Child Emotion Research Laboratory at the Waisman Center, and leads the Wisconsin International Adoption Project, which investigates the successes, challenges, and needs of children who spent some early part of their lives in institutional, orphanage, or foster care settings.

You can read the entire article at the New York Times web site.