Children's Knowledge of Adoption: Developmental Changes and Implications for Adjustment

Each year tens of thousands of children in the United States are adopted. Many are the product of out-of-wedlock pregnancies. An increasing number are adopted when the court system intervenes and terminates the parental rights of biological parents because of abuse or neglect. Still others are the result of abandonment, voluntary relinquishment, or parental death. Finally, a sizable number of foreign-born children are being adopted each year (Feigelman & Silverman, 1983; Kadushin, 1974).