Orphanages improve image in child care.

As an old blues song intones, "Motherless children have a hard time, when their mother is gone." For more than 50 years, child development research has expanded on that premise. Studies have concluded that psychological and behavioral problems frequently plague youngsters who grow up in institutional settings without a parent's love and guidance.

But new evidence out of war-weary Africa offers a counterpoint to this bleak outlook. Kids consigned to either of two orphanages early in their lives exhibited good emotional health and social adjustment as they neared adolescence, according to a report in the October American Journal of Psychiatry.

Moreover, children did best in an orphanage in which the entire staff helped to make decisions and in which children were encouraged to develop lasting relationships with staff members, contend psychiatrist Peter H. Wolff of Children's Hospital in Boston and Gebremeskel Fesseha, an educator and researcher living in Asmara, Eritrea.

"The findings challenge the conclusion that orphanages are breeding grounds of psychopathology and must be avoided at all costs," Wolff and Fesseha say.

Eritrea, located in eastern Africa, recently concluded a 30-year war with neighboring Ethiopia. The war created a large population of Eritrean children who have either no parents or a living parent who can't support them.

The researchers compared two Eritrean orphanages, one housing 450 children in a city and the other accommodating 200 children in a rural area. About half the children had lived at the same orphanage for much of their lives; the rest had recently transferred from another orphanage. Children at both facilities attended nearby public schools. The orphanages employed one staff member for about every 17 youngsters.

The director and several workers at each orphanage completed questionnaires on institutional organization and child-care practices. The mental status of 40 children, ages 9 to 12, at each facility was established through staff members' reports of their behavior and the orphans' responses on memory and reasoning tests.

To probe for insecurities and fears about relationships with adults, the researchers had each child tell a story about a picture showing an Eritrean woman bending over a small boy.

Children in both orphanages exhibited good behavior and mental functioning, although those in the rural orphanage, which stressed consensus decisions by staff, did best. When shown the picture of a woman and child, many orphans reminisced about their war experiences and described orphanage life as a positive change.

These results support a 1996 survey, conducted by economist Richard B. McKenzie of the University of California, Irvine, which found good psychological health and job achievement in 1,600 adults raised in any of nine orphanages in the U.S. South or Midwest.