As you might have guessed from my previous two posts on the work of Professors Robert McCall and Christina Groark, I find the work being done at St. Petersburg's orphanages by these University of Pittsburgh professors fascinating.

They've quantified the basic environment in many Russian orphanages and then they set out to see what changes were possible and practicable. And they achieved real improvements in the short term.

But like any researcher worth his salt, they want to know if the gains will stick. And so, this year, they began two studies to see what became of certain children from the St. Petersburg orphanages after they were adopted by American and Russian families.

They are splitting the children into two groups. The first will include children who were in orphanages that were, according to the professors, lacking in "their social-emotional environments" but were not included in their training program. The second will comprise children from similar backgrounds but whose orphanages received the training and structural changes I described in this post. The professors are including only those children who were later adopted into what they categorize as "highly advantaged" homes.

Adoptive parents will be given questionnaires, and their answers will be compared to those for children raised by biological parents, adopted American children, and non-adopted siblings. The professors will also be seeking input from the children's teachers.

The goal is to see how the children's early environment affected their later development and how this compares to children raised in more deprived orphanages.

The professors' work will continue for the next five years and is being funded by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which is part of the United States' National Institutes of Health. The study team includes the two professors, as well as Rifkat Muhamedrahimov and Oleg Palmov from St. Petersburg State University and Natalia Nikiforova of Baby Home 13.

I can't wait to hear the results.