Adoption Beyond Borders

How International Adoption Benefits Children

Dr. Rebecca Compton

The book is written for a general audience but is based on research evidence. It is not a memoir, unlike many general-audience books about adoption.
The author has "dual credentials"-as an adoptive parent with first-hand knowledge, and as an scholar/teacher well-positioned to translate research evidence for the general reader.
The research reviewed in the book crosses disciplinary lines (e.g., psychology, social work, neuroscience, anthropology); the book is unique in the breadth of research it reviews.
The arguments have policy implications. That is, evidence strongly suggests that policy should favor placing unparented children in adoptive homes as early in life as possible. Instead, many policies encourage time-wasting waffling while children remain in institutions, or prioritize temporary foster care or institutionalization in the country of origin over international adoption.
Although the author has a particular point-of-view that she advocates, the approach in the book is evidence-based and balanced even on controversial topics.

Adoption Beyond Borders

How International Adoption Benefits Children

Dr. Rebecca Compton

Description

Now Available in Paperback, Adoption Beyond Borders endorses international adoption as a viable path to child welfare by exploring key topics including:
· Effects of institutionalization on children's developing brains, cognitive abilities, and socioemotional functioning
· Challenges of navigating issues of identity when adopting across national, cultural, and racial lines
· Strong emotional bonds that form even without genetic relatedness
· How adoptive families can address the special needs of children who experienced early neglect and deprivation, thereby providing a supportive environment in which to flourish
· Features the author's first-hand accounts of her own adoption journey as she visited a Kazakhstani orphanage daily for nearly a year, and illustrates the complexities and implications of the research evidence

Adoption Beyond Borders

How International Adoption Benefits Children

Dr. Rebecca Compton

PART 1: The Adopted Child: Patterns of Loss and Gain
Ch. 1: Introduction
Ch. 2: Physical and Cognitive Development
Ch. 3: Social and Emotional Development
Ch. 4: Culture, Race, and Identity
PART 2: Adoptive Families: Biological, Social, and Clinical Approaches
Ch. 5: Adoption and the Biology of Parenting
Ch. 6: Adoptive Families in Society
Ch. 7: Special Needs and Interventions
Ch. 8: Conclusions and Policy Considerations

Adoption Beyond Borders

How International Adoption Benefits Children

Dr. Rebecca Compton

Author Information

Dr. Rebecca Compton, Professor of Psychology, Haverford College

Rebecca J. Compton is professor of psychology at Haverford College, where she has taught since 1999. She received her BA from Vassar College and her PhD in biological psychology from University of Chicago. Her previous research focused on executive function, attention, and emotion regulation in the human brain, and she has co-authored Cognitive Neuroscience, 4th Edition (2018).

Adoption Beyond Borders

How International Adoption Benefits Children

Dr. Rebecca Compton

Reviews and Awards

"This is one of the very best, most important books written on the plight of unparented children worldwide and the role international adoption can and should play for such children...This book is balanced, entirely fair in airing all important positions. But it is hard-hitting, insisting on what the evidence tells us about the important facts and how those facts should drive policy." - Adoption Quarterly

"Inspired by her own challenging experience as a parent adopting a child from Kazakhstan, academic psychologist Rebecca Compton has authored a clear, well-documented argument that a child's long term health, development and socioemotional well being are largely determined by the presence of devoted, contingent caregivers and a stable family during early life. Addressing criticisms with evidence rather than supposition, she reaches the indisputable conclusion that international adoption remains the best hope for many unparented children worldwide." - Dana E. Johnson, MD, PhD, Professor of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota

"This is a deeply intelligent book that should be a must read for adoptive parents, policy makers, academics, child welfare professionals, and all who care about children. It is beautifully written, insightful and wonderfully wise. Compton destroys many of the stereotypes that dominate discourse on international adoption, and provides an understanding of the reality based on an in-depth assessment of the social science." - Elizabeth Bartholet, JD, Morris Wasserstein Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Child Advocacy Program, Harvard Law School

Adoption Beyond Borders

How International Adoption Benefits Children

Dr. Rebecca Compton

From Our Blog

The consequences of neglect

More than 70 years ago, psychologist Rene Spitz first described the detrimental effects of emotional neglect on children raised in institutions, and yet, today, over 7 million children are estimated to live in orphanages around the world. In many countries, particularly in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the rate of institutionalization of poor, orphaned, and neglected children has actually increased in recent years, according to UNICEF.

Posted on March 18, 2016

Read the blog post