The effects of foster care intervention on socially deprived institutionalized children’s attention and positive affect: results from the BEIP study
Abstract
Background We examined the effects of a foster care intervention on attention and emotion expression in socially deprived children in Romanian institutions. Methods Institutionalized children were randomized to enter foster care or to remain under institutional care. Subsequently, the institutionalized and foster care groups, along with a community-based comparison group, were evaluated on emotion tasks at 30 and 42 months of age. Behaviors reflecting positive and negative affect and attention were coded from videotapes. Results Data indicated that at both age points, children who received the foster care intervention showed higher levels of attention and positive affect compared to children who remained institutionalized. Compared to the community sample, children in the foster care intervention showed higher levels of attention to the emotion-eliciting tasks at 42 months of age. Conclusions The results of this randomized trial demonstrate the impact of a family-based intervention on the development of attention and positive affect.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Foster care intervention in the BEIP is associated with increased attention.
“↑ Attention (Ghera et al., 2009)”
From Resilience following severe early life neglect: A review of longitudinal evidence from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (2026) · cites this paper as Ghera et al., 2009
Children randomized to foster care exhibited better performance on attention, working memory, inhibitory control, language, and associative learning tasks compared to children randomized to CAUG.
“better performance on attention (Ghera et al., 2009), working memory (Bos et al., 2009), inhibitory control (McDermott et al., 2012), language (Windsor et al., 2007(Windsor et al., , 2011(Windsor et al., , 2013)), and associative learning (Sheridan et al., 2018) tasks compared to children randomized to the CAUG”
From Resilience following severe early life neglect: A review of longitudinal evidence from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (2026) · cites this paper as Ghera et al., 2009
No citation lists for this paper
No citation lists for this paper yet — checked again daily.
References 46 · Cited by 96
- Authors
- Ghera, M. M., Marshall, P. J., Fox, N. A., Zeanah, C. H., Nelson, C. A., Smyke, A. T., & Guthrie, D.
- Affiliations
- St. John Fisher University (US)
- Temple University (US)
- University of Maryland, College Park (US)
- Tulane University (US)
- Harvard University (US)
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- Corresponding author
- Ghera, Melissa M.
- Venue
- Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2009-03
- Volume
- 50
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 246-253
- ISSN
- 0021-9630 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-7610
- OpenAlex
- W2125676003
- Cited by
- 96
- References
- 46
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 11 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 18.74
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Child Welfare and Adoption
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Social Sciences › Education › Early Childhood Education and Development
- Keywords
- foster care, institutionalized children, Romanian orphanage, attention, positive affect, negative affect, emotional expression, social deprivation, family intervention, child development
- MeSH terms
- Affect, Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity, Child, Child, Institutionalized, Family, Female, Foster Home Care, Humans, Male, Psychosocial Deprivation, Reinforcement, Psychology, Temperament, Early Intervention, Educational
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
