ADJUSTMENT OF INTERNATIONALLY ADOPTED CHILDREN

Since 1990, nearly 73,000 international children have been adopted by American families with the numbers increasing annually by about 18%. Over these years, the percentage of children adopted out of orphanages or baby homes has increased from 20 to 65%. Two studies are proposed. The first is designed to improve understanding of the health and well being of these children, with an eye to describing the sampling frame for planned future studies of neurophysiology-behavior development and "recovery" in these children. The second is designed toe examine whether pre-adoption institutional cre experiences are associated with tonic increased in cortisol, a stress-sensitive hormone, whose activity is known to be affected in animals by adverse conditions early in development. Thus, in Study 1, in collaboration with the Minnesota's Adoption and Guardianship Division we will abstract data on all international children adopted in Minnesota from 1990 through 1998. We will then survey the families (@ N=4,000) to obtain demographic data, children's pre-adoption histories, health at placement and current health, behavioral and emotional functioning, enrichment experiences and negative life events post-adoption. These data will be used to examine hypotheses regarding factors expected to affect the risk for poor behavioral and health outcomes in these children. In addition, an on- going registry of families interested in future studies will be established. In Study 2 we will examine evening salivary cortisol levels in 300, 5- to 9-year-old registry children selected for differing amounts of pre-adoption institutional care experience. In addition to examining pre- and post-adoption factors related to cortisol levels, associations between cortisol levels and behavior problems will be examined. This work will add significantly to our understanding of the health and behavioral sequelae of early adversity and th potential impact of early adversity on stress-sensitive limbic-hypothalamic processes.