The impact of adoption on child's development

Abstract

Compared with their peers, adopted children face, more often, adversity and risk in early life, namely in terms of complications at birth, loss of the biological family and the admission in institutional settings characterized by less responsive care. Over the past few years, clinicians and researchers have warned about the negative effects of those experiences in child development. Simultaneously, the literature has been reinforcing the occurrence of positive changes after adoption in several areas of development. This paper review presents a summary of the main empirical findings about the effects of adoption, especially international, in child’s physical growth, cognitive, socio­?emotional development and behavioral problems in adopted children.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17575/rpsicol.v27i2.422