ABSTRACT
The term "matching" in adoption referred to process of selecting a family for a child based partially upon similarity between physical attributes, especially in the situation of infant placements. Parents are told about the types of children who are typically needing placement: sibling groups; children over the age of 6. Partridge assessed mismatch in special needs adoptions and identified the following three categories of mismatch: child having specific characteristics that adoptive parents viewed as highly negative. In this study, 6 (15") of the intact adoptions, 13 (87") of the disrupted adoptions, and 19 (76") of the dissolved adoptions were considered to be poor matches. The oldest child had been sexually abused in one foster placement and was physically and emotionally abused in a crisis nursery. While the children were in foster care, workers placed ads in local newspapers as well as the National Enquirer, registered the children with the CAP book, Spaulding for Children and the Adoption Resource Exchange.
