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Chinese Children Showed Improvements On Cognitive And Language Skills After Being Adopted

Decent Essays

Summary: Chinese children showed improvements on cognitive and language skills after being adopted. However, even though Chinese children were the leading internationally adopted group in many countries, “less is known about their attachment and socio-emotional outcomes” (Cohen & Farnia, 2011, p.67). In addition, Cohen and Farnia believed that studies on Chinese adoptees were not measuring these children’s growth efficiently. Hence, Cohen and Farnia see the needs of studying Chinese adoptees’ attachment and socio-emotional adjustments. The scholars started their research by testing differences between adopted and nonadopted children from three aspects: the path of socio-emotional “(i.e., internalizing (I) and externalizing (E))” (p. 68) and attachment behaviors; mothers’ evaluations on “children’s I, E, and attachment behaviors” (p.69); and if the “longitudinal predictors (mental development and language competence)” (p. 69) were able to predict children’s “I, E, and attachment behaviors” (p.69). The researchers sampled 70 adopted Chinese girls and 43 Canadian girls, with the average of first assessment happened at their 13th months. In addition, compared to those nonadoptive parents, the majority of the adoptive mothers were single parents and were greatly older. The first step that the researchers took was conducting interviews with adopted mothers upon their returning to Canada in two weeks. Slightly later, the adopted children were being assessed for the first time,

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