The oral language skills of young offenders: A pilot investigation
- 1 January 2001
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd in Psychiatry, Psychology and Law
- Vol. 8 (1), 1-11
- https://doi.org/10.1080/13218710109524999
Abstract
Although there is a large body of evidence attesting to the poor social skills of juvenile offenders, few workers have examined the underlying language skills of this population. This pilot study investigated the language skills of a group of young offenders in comparison to non‐offending school students. Data were gathered from 15 community‐based young offender males, aged between 13 and 21 years (M = 16.5 years, SD = 2.1) from the Victorian southern region Juvenile Justice Units. The comparison group comprised 15 male students, aged between 15 and 17 years (M = 16.4 years; SD = 0.51) from government high schools in south‐eastern metropolitan Melbourne. Each participant completed a narrative discourse task and measures of speed of processing, and abstract language. It was hypothesised that the young offender group would perform more poorly on each of the language tasks than the comparison group. Independent t tests (with a modified alpha level to control for family‐wise error rates) showed that there were significant differences in the expected direction, on all language measures. Notwithstanding the pilot nature of the investigation, implications of these findings for both further research and intervention/early intervention are described.Keywords
This publication has 28 references indexed in Scilit:
- Comorbidity of Conduct Problems and ADHDJournal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 2000
- Literacy, Numeracy and Non-Verbal Reasoning Skills of South Australian Young OffendersAustralian Journal of Education, 1999
- Adolescent Substance Use Disorders: Findings From a 14-Year Follow-Up of Speech/Language-Impaired and Control ChildrenJournal of Clinical Child Psychology, 1999
- Narrative discourse following severe traumatic brain injury: a longitudinal follow-upAphasiology, 1999
- Social competence and sociomoral reasoning in young offendersApplied Cognitive Psychology, 1999
- Multiple risk factors for multiproblem boys: Co-occurrence of delinquency, substance use, attention deficit, conduct problems, physical aggression, covert behavior, depressed mood, and shy/withdrawn behaviorPublished by Cambridge University Press (CUP) ,1998
- ADHD AND EMERGENT LITERACY: INFLUENCE OF LANGUAGE FACTORSReading & Writing Quarterly, 1998
- Language Deficits in Children at High Risk for Drag AbuseJournal of Child & Adolescent Substance Abuse, 1998
- Language Problems Among Students with Emotional and Behavioral DisordersIntervention in School and Clinic, 1994
- Narrative analysisTopics in Language Disorders, 1986