ABSTRACT

Whereas most biological parents have some form of contact with their children following foster placement, the outcomes of parental visitation for child adjustment remain unclear. We conducted a systematic review of the literature to document associations between parent-child contact and foster child’s adjustment. Research databases for social services and psychology were systematically searched for relevant studies. Of 174 potential studies explored, 18 empirical studies were retained. Analysis revealed that parental contact is associated with attachment to the biological parent, but not with academic functioning or attachment to the foster parent. On the other hand, the results on associations between parental contact and behavioral adjustment are more contradictory, and they generally indicate an absence of association between those variables. These findings suggest that other factors are more salient for understanding the adjustment of foster children.

摘要

尽管大多数亲生父母在寄养后与他们的孩子有某种形式的联系，但父母探视孩子适应的结果仍不清楚。我们对文献进行了系统回顾，以记录亲子接触与寄养儿童适应之间的关联。系统地搜索了社会服务和心理学的研究数据库以查找相关研究。在探索的 174 项潜在研究中，保留了 18 项实证研究。分析表明，父母接触与对亲生父母的依恋有关，但与学业功能或对养父母的依恋无关。另一方面，关于父母接触和行为调整之间关联的结果更加矛盾，它们通常表明这些变量之间没有关联。