An estimated 2-8 million children worldwide live in institutions. Institutions for infants and young children vary
in quality, but most share several characteristics, including large groups of homogeneously-aged children, many
and changing caregivers, periodic transitions of children to new groups of peers and caregivers, and caregivers
who provide necessary physical care but essentially no sensitive, responsive interactions with children. This has
been described as an extreme version of neglect, which is the world’s most common form of maltreatment. What
are the contemporary and longer-term developmental consequences to children of such an early experience? The
presentation will review the results of nearly 20 years of studies, many of which are among the largest and most
comprehensive in the literature, on infants and young children reared in institutions in St. Petersburg, Russian
Federation. The research used four approaches: 1) Empirical description of the institutions and resident children’s
physical and behavioral development; 2) the cognitive, social, and behavioral development to 18 years of age of
such children who were adopted into USA families; 3) the behavioral and physical benefits to children of an
intervention that made the institution more family-like in structure and encouraged caregivers to have warm,
sensitive, responsive interactions with children; and 4) follow-up studies of the behavioral development of children
who experienced this intervention after they were placed into USA and Russian families. The results have
implications for the persistent effects of early deprivation and resilience, the psychosocial short stature hypothesis,
sensitive periods and epigenetics, and the global movement toward family care as an alternative to institutions.