Youth (in)justice : oral language competence in early life and risk for engagement in antisocial behaviour in adolescence

Youth offenders are complex and challenging for policymakers and practitioners alike and face high risks for long-term disadvantage and social marginalisation. In many cases, this marginalisation from the mainstream begins in early life, particularly in the classroom, where they have difficulty both with language/literacy tasks and with the interpersonal demands of the classroom. Underlying both sets of skills is oral language competence&mdash;the ability to use and understand spoken language in a range of situations and social exchanges, in order to successfully negotiate the business of everyday life. This paper highlights an emerging field of research that focuses specifically on the oral language skills of high-risk young people. It presents evidence from Australia and overseas that demonstrates that high proportions (some 50% in Australian studies) of young offenders have a clinically significant, but previously undetected, oral language disorder. The evidence presented in this paper raises important questions about how young offenders engage in forensic interviews, whether as suspects, victims or witnesses. The delivery of highly verbally mediated interventions such as counselling and restorative justice conferencing is also considered in the light of emerging international evidence on this topic.<br /

What`s the story? An exploration of narrative language abilities in male juvenile offenders

This paper is concerned with the narrative language (story telling) abilities of a group of juvenile offenders completing community-based court orders in Melbourne, Australia. A convenience sample of 30 male young offenders was compared with 50 male non-offenders attending government high schools in the same region of Melbourne. Participants provided an audiotaped description of a six-frame cartoon (the &ldquo;Flowerpot Incident&rdquo;). Samples were transcribed and subjected to story grammar analysis, to examine differences between groups regarding both structural and qualitative adequacy. Young offenders produced narratives which were significantly poorer than those of controls with respect to the presence and adequacy of the seven story grammar elements described by Stein and Glenn (In R. O. Freedle (Ed.), New Directions in Discourse Processing (pp. 53-120) 1979). Findings are discussed in relation to implications for investigative and evidentiary interviewing.<br /

Assessing The Impact Of The Swarthmore College Libraries Internship: White Paper

The Swarthmore College Libraries Internship began in 2003 as a multi-institutional Andrew W. Mellon Foundation $1.5 million grant to address diversity in the library profession and recruitment at the undergraduate level. Due to the original success of the program, Swarthmore College Libraries have continued to sponsor the internship with student employment funds since 2010. As the Internship approaches its fifteenth anniversary we examine our original goals: to address the shortage of professional librarians due to retirement; to recruit talented undergraduates early in the hiring pipeline and to broaden the racial and ethnic composition of the library profession so that it can better serve increasingly diverse populations

Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Grant-Funded Educational Program Aimed at Increasing Native Seed Collections in Nevada

In 2003, Nevada Cooperative Extension obtained grant funds to publish a manual and complete educational programs related to collecting native seeds. A survey was completed to determine manual utility and estimate native seed collecting activity. The evaluation indicated 66% of respondents had increased their knowledge related to native seed collections. Seed collection activities were increased by 31% of manual recipients. Manual distribution was increased beyond the original recipients, with 67% of the respondents reporting to have shared the manual with friends or co-workers. The evaluation tool demonstrated how perceived usefulness of the educational tool can be correlated to knowledge gain

Getting the story from child witnesses : exploring the application of a story grammar framework

Investigative interviews with children about alleged abuse were analysed to determine the degree to which the child\u27s responses adhered to a story grammar framework, and whether the presence of story grammar elements was associated with interviewers\u27 adherence to best-practice (i.e. open-ended) questioning. The sample included 51 interviews with child witnesses from across Australia. The interviews were administered by a police officer with children (37 girls and 14 boys) aged 3-16 years (M age = 103.82 months, SD = 34.21 months). The interviewers\u27 questions were categorised as open-ended or specific and the children\u27s responses were classified as a story grammar element, context/background information, or \u27don\u27t know\u27 responses. The majority of interviewer questions were specific in nature and the majority of children\u27s responses were context/background details. Open-ended questions were more successful in eliciting story grammar from children. Of the story grammar elements, the interviewers\u27 specific questions usually targeted setting and attempt details. These findings suggest that improvement in the narrative coherence of children\u27s reports of abusive events can potentially be achieved by increasing interviewers\u27 use of open-ended questions.<br /

Repurposing Fumaric Acid Esters to Treat Conditions of Oxidative Stress and Inflammation: A Promising Emerging Approach with Broad Potential

The medicinal benefit of salts of fumaric acid and its esters (FAE), known as fumarates (mono and dimethyl fumarate), was realized many years ago. Early on, FAE were derived from plants and mushrooms (e.g., Fumaria officinalis, Boletus fomentarius var. pseudo-igniarius). The FAE containing formulation Fumaderm® was licensed in Germany for the treatment of psoriasis in 1994. Recently, a clinical formulation of dimethyl fumarate known as BG12 (Tecfidera) was approved for use in the United States, New Zealand, Australia, European Union, Switzerland, and Canada for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. Others and we have assessed the potential benefit of FAE in a number of disease conditions that are diverse with respect to etiology but unified with regard to the involvement of inflammation and oxidative stress. Hence, a FAE-based drug with robust anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory effects that is already US-FDA approved is a perfect contender for repurposing and rapid clinical implementation for their management. There is a burgeoning literature on the use of FAE in the prevention and treatment of diseases, other than psoriasis and MS, in which oxidative stress and/or inflammation are prominent. This chapter highlights critical information gleaned from these studies, exposes lacunae of potential importance, and provides related perspectives

Heart and Shield Family Violence Prevention Program

Children exposed to domestic violence (DV) inadvertently learn behaviors that make them more likely to become victims and/or perpetrators later in life unless they learn skills to address childhood trauma. This article discusses how two rural community needs assessments identified that DV prevention was a high-priority issue, the effects of DV on youth mental and physical health, and the resulting Heart and Shield Family Violence Prevention Program, a Cooperative Extension program designed to strengthen family relationships and break the cycle of violence. Implications for practice include helping youth build healthy relationships, incorporating DV awareness training in staff/volunteer professional development, collaborating with community partners, and advocating for programs that teach positive parent-child interactions

Theology, News and Notes - Vol. 52, No. 03

Theology News & Notes was a theological journal published by Fuller Theological Seminary from 1954 through 2014.https://digitalcommons.fuller.edu/tnn/1154/thumbnail.jp