Adoption disruption commonly refers to the removal of a child from an adoptive placement before the adoption has been legalized. The term came into use some years ago (Donley, 1978; Unger, Dwarshuis, & Johnson, 1977) as a substitute for such harsh words as “breakdown” or “failure,” reflecting a viewpoint that a child’s removal from a particular adoptive placement signified an interruption in the path to a goal, rather than a final outcome. A distinction has also been made between adoption disruption and dissolution, the latter referring to situations where a legalized adoption has been annulled.