persuasive source of support for the significance of family experience is found in follow-up studies of young children who suffered serious privation, usually the result of war, and were later adopted by nurturant families. Many of the orphans produced by World War II and the Korean conflict, who had extremely fragile bonds to any caretaker in their early years, appeared to develop well after adoption by loving foster parents.17,18 More recently, a group of children who had spent the first year in depriving orphanages in Romania were adopted by nurturant British parents. When they arrived in London, they were emaciated and psychologically retarded, as one would expect, given their harsh experience. However, when they were evaluated several years later, after adoption by middle-class parents, a majority, although not all, were similar in their intellectual profile to the average British child (Michael Rutter, personal communication, 1998).
